


The Limits of the World

by xpityx



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-08-04 02:35:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16338173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Great, this was exactly what Geralt needed: tens of thousands of refugees and a legion of near-unkillable monsters.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ̶W̶I̶P̶ ̶W̶A̶R̶N̶I̶N̶G̶!̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶p̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶p̶t̶e̶r̶ ̶(̶a̶l̶t̶h̶o̶u̶g̶h̶ ̶I̶ ̶k̶n̶o̶w̶ ̶w̶h̶a̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶p̶p̶e̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶g̶e̶n̶e̶r̶a̶l̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶s̶e̶)̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶a̶ ̶R̶E̶A̶L̶L̶Y̶ ̶S̶L̶O̶W̶ ̶w̶r̶i̶t̶e̶r̶.̶ ̶S̶o̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶h̶ ̶-̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶a̶n̶t̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶w̶a̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶i̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶I̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶f̶e̶n̶d̶e̶d̶.̶ 04/02/19 Finished!!
> 
> Warning the second: this is all Geralt POV and while there will absolutely be some Emhyr/Geralt-fumbling-around-like-idiots-then-getting-together stuff going on, the main point of this fic is for me to practice my world-building and OCs so... Speaking of practising my world-building, straight off the bat I'm going to say that the monsters in this were very much inspired by those of the internet-famous [Red Dragon Tetralogy](http://www.adimra.100megs6.com/lisalu/reddragon.html) (a Dragonball Z fic). Yeah.
> 
> Lastly! Thank you to my babe Kit, without whom there would be a fuckton more 'though's in this fic.

 

Geralt looked down at the map Ciri had drawn and then back up at the field he was stood in. It was quite a nice field, relatively speaking. It sloped into a very slight trough near the middle and was bordered by mature trees and rosgod bushes. He could even hear the faint sound of a stream somewhere out of sight. The sun was nearing its zenith, but the day was pleasantly cool even under the weight of his armour, and Roach had taken the pause as an opportunity to begin to crop the grass around her.

 

Nevertheless, confident that he had reached his destination, he dismounted and began to walk the field, starting from the middle and working outwards in spirals. It took two hours to cover all the ground and none of his senses, not even his medallion, indicated that the gently rolling grasses were anything other than what they seemed.

 

Ciri had been the one to ask him to come, but he had no doubt that Emhyr had approved of the contract, as much leeway as he gave Ciri these days in her duties as Crown Princess. She had told him that she had sensed some disturbance of the ley lines in this area about two weeks ago, but it had taken her a couple of days to narrow down where it was coming from, then another week to find Geralt and deliver him here by portal. He’d promised to camp out for a few days to see if he could work out what, if anything, was going on.

 

He spent a pleasant day meditating in the sunshine, then in the evening he found the stream he had heard earlier, and washed in the bracingly cold water. The next morning he spent two hours going through various sword forms, before washing again and settling down to a late breakfast. He was therefore startled when sometime just before noon, a massive portal ripped open on the far side of the field with a sound like an avalanche. Geralt was glad it was only Roach who was there to bear witness to him spilling tea on himself.

 

He stared at it for a moment, shimmering dark in the day’s heat before throwing his swords over his shoulder and taking Roach to ride closer. Once he was six feet or so from it he could make out vague shapes within, like darting fish in deep water. He was debating whether or not see if he should walk through it when a great black bird flew out, calling and gyring in the sunshine. Geralt watched it for a moment to make sure it wasn’t going to turn into something monstrous, so he almost missed the movement inside the portal, turning back to see a rider on horseback gallop out. She paid no mind to Geralt, simply scanning the horizon then turning and shouting something unintelligible back towards where she had come from. Instantly tens, then hundreds of people began to run out of the opening, the smell of fear and exhaustion of them nearly choking Geralt.

 

He unsheathed his swords. Not out of concern that the beings tumbling out of the portal were dangerous, more that anyone who was that afraid must be running from something terrible. The rider dismounted, and Geralt could see the tell-tale point of her ears under her dirty braids. She was filthy, in fact, her clothes worn to thread in some places and her deep olive skin darkened further with grime. When she turned to give an order to some people nearer to Geralt he flinched at the terrible claw marks that disfigured her face, pulling her mouth down into a permanent grimace on one side. She had been lucky to survive something that could do that kind of damage.

 

None of the people still streaming through the portal paid the slightest bit of notice to ether Geralt or their surroundings, simply running either to the furthest edge of the field or lining up at the side of the portal, as if to create a boundary of some sort. Carts began to file through, some carrying food and some carrying the sick and injured. One of the carts was pulled by a great beast of a kind Geralt had never seen before, and humans and non-humans alike streamed past him in a never-ending torrent. Regardless of race they were all desperately afraid. So much so that Geralt started to make his way towards the elf that had first come through the portal, hoping she spoke enough Common that he would be able to find out what they were running from. A scream sounded out before he even halved the distance between them and a man tumbled through the portal with a great black creature wrapped around him, blood oozing from where its many legs had burrowed into his skin. The elf was there in an instant, unsheathing two golden swords and savagely hacking legs off the creature until it fell from the man and began to drag itself unsteadily through the grass. Geralt lept forward and cut it in half, kicking its remains back through the portal. He looked up to see that man had been pulled into the arms of an older woman, who wailed as he began to convulse, heaving up blood and some grey liquid that bubbled as he drowned in his own blood. The elf briefly put a hand on the woman’s shoulder, then heaved up the dead body and, together with a human who had been stood nearby, they pushed it back through the portal. The whole thing had taken less than a minute and Geralt was uncomfortably aware that it seemed practiced, as if it was horror that had played out many times before. As if in answer to his thoughts another scream went up, and he spent the next hour dodging people as he killed the creatures as they appeared, usually attached to some poor person who then died before he even had a chance to comfort them. He could see now that the people who lined the edge of the route where to stop the creatures escaping out into the world, and more than once he saw someone put their body between a creature and the calm grasses than lay behind them. One had died before anyone had been able to get the creature off him, and a woman had simply stepped in to fill his space.

 

He caught snatches of languages as more and more people came through the portal: Elder Speech and the Dryad Dialect, but more often he heard languages that were meaningless to him. Two more elves came through on horses, and spoke briefly to the elf with the golden swords before riding towards the now thousands of people who stretched the whole length of the field. The elf called out in her unintelligible language and people up and down the line echoed her either in the same language or others more familiar to Geralt. _Move back_ , she was saying, _move back._ A few armed humans and a handful of elves continued to kill and throw back stray creatures, but there were less and less people coming through the portal, although many of those that were were badly wounded or appeared just plain exhausted. Geralt caught a young elf as he staggered and he literally collapsed in his arms. He looked down at him, unsure what to do, but two people ran up to him and took him, carrying him further down the field so Geralt was free to go back to the edge of the portal. From this close he could just about make out a vast empty landscape, with a light like a star in the distance. Three somethings were coming closer, and as he watched the portal started to shrink, fast enough that he found himself worrying that whoever they were, they weren’t going to make it. They did, elves thundering through and then past him on great horses. They pulled up short just before the female elf, who looked at her companions with something like horror on her face. She threw herself forward towards the portal just as one of the elves leapt down from his horse and tackled her to the ground, both of them going down into the churned mud. Geralt stood frozen, not having the slightest clue who the good guys were in this scenario. He did step forward in concern when she pulled out one of her golden blades, but another elf caught her hand as she struggled to escape. Then the portal was closed, with little fanfare other than the sound of absolute agony that the elf made, kneeling in the mud, held fast by her companions. Geralt looked away then, realising that it was grief that he was intruding on, but not before he saw that she was open mouthed and gasping, as if she had been struck. He could hear the other elves speaking to her in low voices. It sounded like they were begging.

 

Geralt scanned the horizon where somewhere upwards of 50,000 people had gathered. It was hard to get his head around that many people, but he could see signs of organisation as tents had appeared and everyone seemed to be moving to and fro with purpose. Movement brought him back to the tragedy he had witnessed the edges of, and the elf was slowly climbing to her feet. She stood for a moment, head down, before she turned and mounted the nearest horse, back straight as she rode towards the tents. Everyone around him, Geralt included, watched her ride away, but she didn’t look back.

 

One of the elves he had been fighting with came towards him, unsheathed sword in hand, and spoke to him in accented Elder Speech.

 

“Thank you for your help today. I am Aithlin.”

 

“Geralt of Rivia,” he replied shortly in the same language, “what just happened?”

 

Aithlin looked grim, “it is not for me to say. However, I feel that the more important question for yourself would be: what are we running from?”

 

-

 

There were some who spoke a version of Elder Speech familiar to Geralt, but he did not hear a single word of Common as he moved among the tents. Oddly, Geralt could not sense any relief from those around him - just grim determination as they went about the tasks associated with feeding and housing so many people. There seemed to be no further danger, so Geralt set off for the nearest town to send a message to Ciri. A fast horse could get to the capital within two days, and Geralt had given the young man a heavy purse so that he could change horses halfway.

 

He returned to the fields within two hours to find great open tents had been erected, with the elderly, sick and young inside and the rest making do with what untrampled grass they could find. Small cooking fires dotted the landscape, and Geralt thought that most likely the surrounding fields were rather lacking in small mammals than they had been two hours ago. He had plenty of food left in his packs, and he sat down at one of the fires to share it with a group of young men and women, both human and elvish. They spoke Elder Speech, and were happy with the food he offered to share with them. They conversed easily to him, with none of the wariness he had come to expect from strangers. There were those among them who remained quiet of course, but more from grief than fear, Geralt thought.

 

The elf with the golden swords was called Selah, his new companions informed him, and she was spoken of with the kind of reverence usually reserved for the nicer gods. From what he could gather she went first through the portals to check there were no creatures, or _kura_ , as some called them, and she had been on one of the first worlds to be overrun. They spoke of travelling between worlds as if it was nothing, and Geralt eventually discovered that the portals were the work of a sorceress called Alaesa who was spoken about with equal awe. It didn’t take long for Geralt to realise that she was who had been left behind when the portal had closed. They could tell him little about the creatures other than they fed on magic and that there were uncountable numbers of them. One of the more poetic souls in the group, a young elf, described them as ‘blotting out the sky’. Geralt hoped she was being hyperbolic.

 

He didn’t even meditate the first night, just went into one of the larger tents and, through a series of hand gestures, offered what little healing skills he had. He cleaned and sutured wounds, and used the poutices that were passed to him when directed. None of the healers spoke anything resembling a language he understood, but they still managed to keep him busy until the sun started to creep over the horizon. Finally he was pointed towards an empty bedroll, but he needed only a few hours of sleep before he was up again. Most of the wounded had been given what help was available by then, so he went to check on Roach. He’d tethered her a little way into a copse of trees, and was surprised to see she’d been joined by a number of the great horses the elves had ridden, all roped to trees nearby and cropping the grass contentedly. The elf Aithlin was tending to them, and Geralt made sure to let his footfalls sound as he approached. Not that he thought he had any hope of being able to sneak up on an elf, but it was a courtesy that Vesemir had drilled into him.

 

Aithlin simply nodded at him when he got close, so Geralt went to Roach and spoke softly to her instead, giving her some oats when she winnied at him.

 

“Who did you inform?”

 

Geralt turned at the question.

 

“When you rode out yesterday, who did you go to inform of our arrival?”

 

He hadn’t tried to hide his departure, but he’d also thought that it was unlikely that anyone had noticed his absence among so many people.

 

“The Heir-Apparent to the Empire,” he replied, which had the benefit of being the absolute truth, but also telling the elf nothing at all.

 

“We are in an Empire?”

 

Geralt nodded, the elf didn’t seem perturbed by the revelation.

 

“That will make it easier to negotiate for what we need then.”

 

Geralt must have looked questioning, because he continued.

 

“We didn’t come here by chance, and I can’t imagine that this field will sustain us for long.” Geralt spoke the Elder Speech well, but there was a tonal quality to the elf’s speech that meant he had to take a second to tease out the meaning.

 

“You mean to stay?” Hundreds of worlds they had passed through, according to the people he had spoken to on the first night, why would they make their home in this one? And, more importantly, how did they know if was safe from the creatures?

 

Aithlin nodded again, his fair hair glinting in the light.

 

“How do you know you won’t be followed? That it’s not something about you, and moving through worlds that attracts the creatures?” He asked. It would be the first thing Emhyr would want to know.

 

Aithlin smiled a little, but it wasn’t particularly happy. “If you knew how much we had sacrificed to get here then that is not a question you would dare to ask.” He took a breath, “No, the creatures will not follow us here, your world is safe for now.”

 

Geralt looked at him sharply, that almost sounded like a threat.

 

“We are no danger to you or your world, in fact we bring you something worth it’s weight in dimeritium, something none of us had: a warning.”

 

He opened his mouth to ask something else but the elf cut him off, “I will not answer any more of your questions, but Selah will speak with your leaders when they arrive. I will not sell our only advantage so cheaply.”

 

He returned to seeing to his horses then, and Geralt did the same, taking down his pack and sorting through it for something to do. Not that he thought that Aithlin would give him any more information, but he wanted to think a while before heading back into the camp.

 

-

 

Geralt spent the next day in much the same way as the first: offering what skills he had and listening for the little he could understand of what was being spoken around him. He began to look to the horizon for the tell-tale shimmer of a portal by mid-afternoon, but it was some hours later before one finally appeared, not far from where the first had been.

 

The terror caused by the opening of the portal was so great that for a moment Geralt thought that the creatures had returned. It was Emhyr and his retinue, of course, which was a good enough reason to be afraid for most people, but they couldn’t have known that yet. He wasn’t surprised to learn that Ciri wasn’t among the party. After six months as Heir she was more than capable of minding the nest of vipers that was the capital’s court while the Emperor was elsewhere.

 

Aithlin and an elf he had only seen from afar came over to fetch him not long after Emhyr’s arrival. The second elf was introduced to him as Dakat, and was Aithlin’s absolute opposite in appearance: tall and dark-skinned, he had the bearing of royalty or a mage. He spoke yet another dialect of Elder Speech that Geralt had never heard before, and when they reached the Emperor’s pavilion, Dakat also spoke to the waiting Selah in her oddly-stressed language: all sharp consonants and short vowels. Geralt had not seen Selah up close since the portal had closed, and he was a little surprised to see that she wore almost exactly the same filthy clothes as she had worn before. She had evidently taken the time to clean her face, but she had made no other efforts: her hair was now in a simple thick braid, in stark difference to her companions’ complex styles. Up close, the right side of her face was even more a mess than it had looked at first glance. Her scars rivalled even Eskel’s, snarling her flesh with their violence. Geralt nodded at her as they approached, but if she recognised him she gave no sign of it. She spoke directly to Dakat, who turned to Geralt to translate.

 

“What is your relation to the Emperor?”

 

Geralt shifted, not sure how to summarize Emhyr. They were certainly not friends, he wasn’t even sure they were allies some days, but Ciri was an unbreakable bond between them.

 

“I saved his life, once.” He replied, instead of trying to explain his relation to Ciri.

 

Selah regarded him for a moment before making a brief gesture to the other elves. She then turned and walked through the churned earth to the entrance of the pavilion, Aithlin, Dakat and Geralt following behind. The pavilion was guarded by a full complement of Imperial Guards, looking very out of place among the mud in their gold and black. The sun flag hung desultory in the heat, and Geralt could smell the sweat of the guards from ten paces away. The were obviously expected, the guards nearest the door standing aside smartly as they entered. It was marginally cooler in the atrium where Mererid was waiting for them, looking as displeased as ever.

 

“Master Witcher,” he began, “And those who have traveled untold distances to join his Royal Majesty. Please be welcome.” He executed a minimal bow, which neither the elves or Geralt returned. Geralt didn’t bother to interpret.

 

“You must of course divest yourselves of your weapons before entering the presence of the Emperor.”

 

Geralt translated that into Elder Speech, which Dakat then translated to Selah, who looked like she might refuse for a brief moment. The guards shifted uneasily, and Geralt was just getting ready for life to get exciting again when she reached up and pulled her sheathed swords over her shoulder, placing them where Mererid indicated. The others followed suit, but Geralt didn’t bother. Emhyr was clever enough to know that Geralt didn’t need his swords to be deadly, so why make him remove them? He imagined that was what had happened anyhow, as Mererid had just stopped asking it of him one day.

 

“Perhaps you could introduce your companions, so that I might properly announce them?” Mererid inquired.

 

“Er, this is Aithlin, Dakat, and Selah,” he replied, gesturing to each in turn.

 

Mererid raised an eyebrow and Geralt shrugged at him. That was all that he had.

 

They went into the next, much more grand chamber and were duly presented to Emhyr, where yet again everyone failed to bow. Emhyr looked directly at him as if it were Geralt’s fault.

 

“I am Dakat of Athros, a Keeper of the Library of Veren; this is Aithlin of Nelin, a farmer and hunter; and this is Selah, a Priestess of the High Temple of Varanar.” He managed to insert enough gravatas into his voice that it was clear that whatever the High Temple of  Varnar was, it was damned important. Selah had straightened a little when Dakat spoke the name of her temple, as though she had suddenly remembered who she was. Geralt had met an elven priestess once, though he couldn’t recall her carrying any weapons, nor fighting like a demon, so perhaps they were speaking of different religions. “We have traveled through many worlds to reach yours,” the elf was saying in Elder Speech, “and we bring dark tidings.”

 

Geralt was immensely pleased that Emhyr was fluent and he therefore did not have to try to to think of a less stupid way to phrase that.

 

“Welcome, Dakat of Athros, Aithlin of Nelin, and Selah of the High Temple of Varanar. We also welcome Geralt of Rivia,” Emhyr spoke Elder Speech beautifully, the way that Geralt had only heard from elven royalty. It was enough to wonder where he’d learnt it.

 

Dakat spoke a few words to Selah, who replied shortly in her own language.

 

Geralt could see that Emhyr’s attention was caught. There were a few dialects of Elder Speech that he might have found difficult to understand, but a wholly unknown elven language was, to the best of his knowledge, unheard of.

 

“The Honored Selah would like to give you the terms of our exchange,” Dakat translated. Geralt caught the edge of a wince from Aithlin.

 

Emhyr raised an eyebrow half a millimeter, and made a gesture for them to be seated.

 

The elves hestated, so Geralt stepped around them and made himself comfortable on the low chairs that had been set out for that exact purpose. He helped himself to the very fine wine that had been provided then toasted Emhyr before taking a sip. Good stuff. Emhyr was watching him with annoyance, so at least he was unlikely to order any of his other guests killed for impertinence in the next minute or so.

 

Perhaps it had been the etiquette that had caused the elves to hesitate, as after a moment they followed his lead, although they all refused any drink when a servant came forward.

 

Emhyr regarded them for a moment, undoubtedly making sure that everyone in the room understood that he replied because he wished to, and for no other reason.

 

“And what exchange would that be? As far as I can see, you have tens of thousands of refugees in need of aid and little to offer.”

 

Dakat interpreted in a low voice as Emhyr spoke, but if Saleh was disturbed by the lightly veiled threat, then she didn’t show it. She made a minimal gesture towards Aithlin, who reached into his cloak and began to draw out something long and dark.

 

Every guard came to full attention, and the tension in the room soared. Selah sat up a little straighter, her hands twitching in such a way that Geralt was suddenly sure she was carrying a weapon on her person somewhere. He stayed deliberately relaxed though, knowing that Emhyr would at least take his opinion that this was not a threat into account.

 

After a tense moment Emhyr nodded, and Aithlin, much more slowly than before, fully removed a flat box from his robes, placing it on the table in front of them. It was small, black, and made from some material that Geralt couldn’t immediately identify. It looked like wood, but it smelt of nothing - as if it’s scent had been drained from it. It was small, less than half a foot on the longest side. It was too small to contain one of the creatures he had seen, but when Ailthin started to open it Geralt reached out to put a restraining hand over his. Every guard in the room unsheathed their swords.

 

Geralt ignored them, keeping his eyes on Aithlin.

 

“Is it dead?” He asked.

 

“Yes. It is dead.” Aithlin confirmed. Geralt lent back and nodded at Emhyr. The guards stood down at some signal that he missed. He was half tempted to put his hands on his own swords, but he knew that the elves sought only help for the people they had lead through countless worlds to find safety. They would not put that in jeopardy.

 

Geralt had been right: the box was too small to hold an entire creature. It was one of the long, needle sharp legs that he had seen tear through armour and flesh. Emhyr was watching him for his reaction, so he let a little of his revulsion show.

 

Saleh spoke again, addressing Emhyr directly, but speaking slowly enough for Dakat to translate.

  
“We call them _kura_. They destroyed my world, and Dakat’s. They destroyed Aithlin’s world, and countless others. I have walked through over two hundred portals, until at last we discovered a way to come here, the world furthest from the destruction. The kura will not follow us: the distance is too great for them. But they will find their way here, once all other worlds have been destroyed.” She took a breath before speaking again, Dakat falling silent with her. “We bring knowledge. We bring hope. We bring warning. This is what I bargain with.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm trying to keep my chapters about the same length but have failed already at the second chapter. So, slightly shorter one here, slightly longer one next time.

 

 

Roach looked slightly ridiculous next to the massive horses Selah and Dakat rode, but she seemed content to plod along behind the two stately mounts and their equally poised riders. Emhyr had assumed that they would be making their way to the Capital by portal, but Geralt had been unsurprised when Dakat had refused on his and Selah’s behalf. No-one who had seen the last portal they’d come through would’ve expected them to voluntarily walk through another if they could help it.

 

Emhyr had caught Geralt’s eye and he’d found himself offering to accompany them without really thinking it through, still a little dazed from the deal he’d witnessed. He’d opened his mouth half a dozen times in the last day to ask Selah about it, but he felt a little uncomfortable about having such a conversation via Dakat, who had to translate even the most basic of exchanges between them.

 

He’d understood, even been sympathetic to Selah’s assertion that she had no reason to trust Emhyr’s word, and would not gamble the fate of her people on that alone. What he was less clear on was why she’d then requested that Emhyr swear to keep to their bargain on _Geralt’s life_. He might have spent the last few minutes of the meeting gaping somewhat unattractively as Emhyr had then sworn to do so with all appearance of seriousness. Emhyr valued Ciri of course, who in turn valued Geralt, but Selah had no notion of his connection to the Crown Princess.

 

It was a puzzle, and one that had been troubling him on and off for the two days since the bargain had been struck. Information on the kura in exchange for help for the fifty thousand or so people Selah had brought through the portal. It was a worthy deal, except for the part where if either side didn’t follow through then _his life was forfeit._ Unfortunately, the road from Bredon to the Capital was well-maintained, so there wasn’t even the chance of bandits to distract him from his wonderings.

 

Dakat and Selah rode mostly in silence. Selah had changed into clean clothes at some point, although he suspected someone had had to cajole her to do so, but Dakat looked every inch the proud elf. His leathers gleamed in the light; his hair twisted into thick ropes that stopped just short of his shoulders, and on the end of each was a golden bead. Some ten of these were carved into elaborate shapes - Geralt could see an open book, its pages covered in tiny script; a quill; and a number of unfamiliar symbols. Strangely, they didn’t make a noise when they struck each other. His theory was that the wide headband holding them off his face was spelled for silence somehow. Occasionally Dakat would say something to Selah in her own language, although he didn’t seem to get much from her in way of reply. The great bird that he’d first seen fly through the portal circled overhead, sometimes alighting on the back of one or the other’s saddle, but even it was quiet. It was a _dythi_ , Dakat had informed him when he’d asked. Geralt was more interested in how it had been trained not to shit on anyone than its genus, but there wasn’t really a polite way of asking that in Elder Speech.

 

“Geralt?” Dakat’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“I wondered if you could be so kind as to teach me a little of the common tongue that your people use?”

 

“Sure. Where we’re going they speak Nilfgaardian, but everyone speaks Common as at least a second language.”

 

“I have no understanding of it,” Dakat replied, “but my preliminary observations would indicate that its word order follows that of the languages of some of the more recent human settlements of my own world, but that is mere supposition of course.”

 

Geralt raised his eyebrows a little at that. “In your Library of Veren, were you a linguist by any chance?”

 

Dakat nodded, his hair swinging with the movement. “Yes, though the study of dead languages was not a skill I had thought would ever have such a use,” he said, glancing at Selah.

 

“Wait, you’re not just from different worlds, but different _times_?”

 

“Well, yes. That is way of the multiverse: if one travels far enough through worlds, one can travel through time as well. And we are from worlds very far from yours.”

 

Geralt blinked at him for a moment, startled by the implications. Well, that certainly explained the language barrier.

 

Selah said something sharp and Dakat bowed his head in acknowledgement.

 

“Forgive me,” he said, turning back to Geralt, “Selah has reminded me that information is all we have to bargain with, so I should be a little more prudent as to how and to whom I give it.”

 

“She understood?” Geralt asked, surprised.

 

Dakat shook his head, “no, she is just occasionally frighteningly intuitive.” He smiled a little, as if to take the edge off the statement.

 

They lapsed back into silence for a moment, then Geralt cleared his throat to regain the elf’s attention. He began naming things that he could put his hands on in Common Speech - Roach, his swords and provisions - Dakat repeating his words back to him in his low, clear voice.

 

-

  


Neither Dakat or Selah even blinked at the size of the Capital, which made Geralt even more curious about the cities of their worlds. A little sombre too, to think of what had been lost to war and hate in his own world. He had decided that in this instance discretion was the better part of valour, and was leaving the job of explaining the diminished status of elves to someone else.

 

The guards at the inner gates let them through without challenge, one or two nodding to Geralt in greeting. He had been known to spar with some of the Imperial Guards when staying at the Palace for more than a day or two. Most of them had been in the Capital too long to hold onto to their suspicion of Witchers, and a few were even grateful for the pointers he gave them.

 

Dakat and Selah were ushered off somewhere by one of the under-Chamberlains, while Geralt was lead to the main state rooms by an Imperial Guard. They passed rows of Guards in their gold and black until they reached the inner study that, after nearly a year of Ciri living there, Geralt had come to know well. There, Ciri was waiting for him, attended by her own retinue.

 

She smiled warmly at him as she rose to greet him, “I hear you found about as much trouble as I’d expect from you.”

 

Geralt snorted. “This one was not my fault.”

 

He sat, helping himself to a glass of wine.

 

“I take it Emhyr has given you the summary?” He asked, half wanting to know if anyone had told her the exact terms of the deal or not.

 

She made a slight gesture that had her attendants bowing themselves out of the room, and Geralt took the opportunity to unstrap his swords and lay them beside him.

 

“Yes,” Ciri said, turning back to him and pouring herself some honeyed tea, “I’ve already sent surveyors out near the Runswick river in order to look at its suitability as a place to build temporary shelters. We’re lucky it’s been a dry Summer so far.”  

 

Which was confirmation enough that Emhyr hadn’t seen fit to explain the wording of the deal that had been struck, which suited Geralt just fine.

 

“You have somewhere in mind large enough to house so many people?” He queried, surprised.

 

“There were contingency plans in place to accommodate up to half a million refugees in case the Pontar splits it banks, we can use those until we are able to find more permanent accommodation.”

 

Geralt raised his eyebrows: he’d thought he’d come back to a least a little chaos. Fifty thousand refugees was no small challenge, but of course Ciri would be up to the job. He was proud of her, and he let it show in his voice.

 

“That’s fast work, Ciri.”

 

She ducked her head a little, but any further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Emhyr. He who looked almost flustered, and both Geralt and Ciri exchanged a worried glance as he came to seat himself.

 

“Is anything wrong?” Ciri asked her father.

 

“No, of course not. I’m glad to see you back already Geralt, you made good time.”

 

Geralt would bet the wealth of ten contracts that Emhyr had been worried about him telling Ciri about the deal he’d struck on Geralt’s life.

 

“Yeah,” he replied, grinning, “Ciri and I have had time for a good catch up.”

 

Ciri shot him an odd look, obviously thinking that they were beyond the less civil interactions that had marked her first few months as Heir.

 

“I’m pleased,” Emhyr replied, severely. He would no doubt be aware that if Geralt had told Ciri there would be a lot more shouting happening right about now.

 

“What’s going on?” Ciri asked, on cue.

 

“Nothing,” Geralt replied, contriving to look innocent. She narrowed her eyes dangerously, but Emhyr cleared his throat to bring their attention back to him.

 

“I have updated Cirilla on the little information the elves shared with us, but I think we would both benefit from your observations. Is the threat as great as they indicated?”

 

Geralt sat forward a little on his chair. “I can’t say for sure because I only saw a handful of the creatures, but the sheer number of people, the injuries I saw, the terror, the military discipline in people who were obviously not military. It all adds up to a horror beyond what I can imagine.” He remembered the people standing side by side, standing firm as the creatures ripped apart the person next to them, the calm of those who ran to take their fallen comrades’ place. He shook himself. “If it’s a ruse, I can’t imagine its purpose, or the scope of it.”

 

“We’ve sent out word to the Aen Saevherne in the hope they will be able to look for any sign of these kura,” Ciri said, “but if the worlds these people have come from are as distant as Father has says they are, then it’s likely they will not be able to travel far enough to find any sign of them.”

 

“How did you know they were from distant worlds?” Geralt asked.

 

“Almost everyone there spoke a dead language.” Emhyr replied, as if it was obvious.

 

Food was brought in then, and Geralt ate his own body weight in beef stew while Emhyr and Ciri had an exhausting-sounding conversation about all the ways this could be a trick, until they seemed to come to the same conclusion Geralt: It likely wasn’t and they were in danger from an enemy they had no understanding of.

 

Emhyr looked tired, Geralt thought, as he sent off a servant to fetch the elves. He could not imagine the Emperor had been looking forward to his eventual retirement as such, but it was quite another thing to be faced with so great a threat.

 

Geralt looked longingly at the remaining food as servants came to clear the table. They moved to the more formal receiving area, where he helped himself to tea while they waited for Selah and Dakat to join them.

 

Some thirty minutes later they were shown in and presented to Emhyr and Ciri. The elves executed small bows, having obviously been advised better on etiquette this time.

 

The pleasantries were brief and, even after knowing them so short a time, Geralt could see that both elves had steeled themselves for the meeting. Geralt had questioned enough grieving people to recognise the look when he saw it.

 

“I trust the plans you have been shown for the provisions and shelters to be provided to your people have satisfied you?” Emhyr asked.

 

“Yes, your majesty, they are generous and we are grateful.” Dakat replied.

 

“My daughter has already ordered preparations for permanent shelters to begin at a place only a day’s ride from here. Temporary structures are already in place and your people can be brought to them via portal as soon as is convenient for you.”

 

“Your majesties are most kind,” Dakat declared.

 

“We would be grateful if you could share a little more of your knowledge of these kura, so that we will be able to start planing appropriately for the defence of this world, and all who reside here.” Ciri added, regal and calm.

 

Dakat glanced at Selah, who only stared straight ahead. He cleared his throat. “Please forgive us, but the Honoured Selah does not speak any language known to you. As the first world that we know of to be attacked by these creatures, it is her testimony that will best evidence our journey.”

 

Ciri tilted her head in acknowledgement, and then turned to Selah expectantly.

 

“There was no warning,” Selah explained, via Dakat. “One moment we were… we just were, and the next the sky split open and they swarmed through.”

 

It wasn’t a portal, or if it was it was not any she had seen before, she continued. It was more like a tear in the fabric of the world, with all the wrongness one could expect from such a cataclysm. The creatures poured over the city and, although they were too far away for her to see, she could feel hundreds then thousands of elves dying around her. She had been with a fellow elf named Alaesa, who was greatly skilled in the magical arts, who was able to open a portal to another city in their world and two hundred or so of them escaped through it. That city was dead. Nearly a million souls had lived there, and there was nothing. It was quiet and still: the massacre was so fresh that the bodies had not even begun to smell in the summer heat. Another city, and another. Sometimes picking up a few survivors on the way. Finally, they held the creatures off for long enough for Alaesa to open a portal to another world, one close to their own. Two days later the kura came.

 

Over a hundred worlds, sometimes with weeks before they were caught, sometimes when they arrived the world was already dead. Eventually they began to develop a system to try and save as many people as they could. Alaesa would open a portal and Selah would go through first. As a priestess and one of their most skilled fighters, she had the best chance of survival if the world had already been overrun. Often the sheer number of kura forced them through a portal, regardless of the safety of the world they went into.

 

The kura fed on magic, and on any creature that used magic. Dwarves and gnomes were the most susceptible, along with other sentients they had encountered in less distant worlds.

 

Alaesa started to maintain a shield as well as a portal, but even the most powerful magic-resistant shield had to be maintained with magic, so the kura kept coming for them. The greatest number of people they had taken through a single portal was over a million, and the smallest was a few hundred. Their numbers had waxed and waned as hundreds, sometimes thousands of the refugees were slaughtered at a time. Although the loss of magic was not fatal to most, the fact that the kura ripped people apart to get at their magic often was.

 

After months of fighting and dying and running they had calculated the world that was the greatest distance from them, and Alaesa had opened a portal on an abandoned world. However, the sheer power needed to sustain such magic had called to the kura, who had broken through the shield spell as they had so many times before.

 

The exact method used to calculate the distance had been lost when the last portal closed, but the sages who helped determine the spellwork Alaesa had used had made it to safety. They would share that information once their people had been brought to their temporary shelters. But there was time: they had bought them time.

 

Selah fell silent as Dakat finished his translation.

 

No-one seemed willing to be the first to break the hush that had fallen over the room, but Geralt had one question.

 

“What are they?”

 

“We do not know for sure,” Dakat replied, “But I can tell you what our sages say: they are living chaos, come to unmake the world. They existed in the void, but the opening of portals between between worlds allowed them to slip through to where they should not be. They cannot be stopped, and they are too numerous to kill. All we can do is hide from them, and to that, we must hide all magic.”

 

-

  


The next morning Geralt made his way to the training grounds, most of his mind on what the elves had revealed of their ordeal the day before. Ciri and Dakat had argued long into the night over the possibility of creating a shield large enough to cover their entire world. The problem of course was that while it was theoretically possible to create a type of shield that was mostly magic-neutral, the Divis Paradox stated that one cannot create something that repels magic without using magic.

 

Dakat was due to go via portal to lead the rest of their people through that day. It was a little odd to hear elves speak so casually of such a diverse group of races as their own tribe, but it was clear that even if the antagonism that existed in his own world was present in any of theirs, months of terror had gone some way to allow them to bridge their differences.

 

Geralt himself felt a little useless now there was no imminent danger. Magical theory was not something taught in detail at Kaer Morhen, and he was loathe to outstay his welcome when there was scant need for his sword. Perhaps there would be once they had more of an idea when the kura would come closer to their own world, but for the moment he felt his own home calling to him. He hoped that this particular crisis was something that could be solved by mages and spellwork. He had lived through one near world-ending catastrophe all too recently and he was not eager for another.

 

As he turned the corner he was surprised to find Selah on the training field, sparing with an imperial guard while a knot of his off-duty peers watched. He wondered how they had managed to communicate well enough to decide to spar. Just as he came up to the group of onlookers she unarmed her opponent, flicking his sword out of his hand using the curved guard of her golden blade. She stuck her weapon point down into the dirt as her opponent collected his sword to the jeers on the onlookers then, once he had directed his attention back to her, she clapped four times in quick succession, then again, twice at half the speed. The guard nodded to indicate he understood that they were fighting at half speed, then she used the same maneuver she had used to flick his sword from his hands, this time he followed the arc of the movement and was able to remain armed. They did it again, still at half speed, then again at a different angle. Finally, Selah clapped four fast beats against her sword arm and they fought again at full speed. She still won the match but this time the guard kept his sword.

 

Geralt clapped with the rest, who inevitably turned to him to fight next. He raised his eyebrows in Selah in question, who simply unsheathed her second sword, ready to meet his own.

 

It was the first time he had had a chance to look at her blades up close. The hilts were simple: wrapped in worn leather they was much shorter than average, with no pommel to speak of. The guard was a short front piece and a longer, rounded back piece that Selah had used so well to disarm her last opponent. The blades themselves were wide, curved metal of a sort that Geralt couldn’t identify by sight. She twirled them once to warm up her wrists, the blades singing at the edge of his hearing. He grinned and attacked.

 

He already knew she was quick, but he was surprised at the relative strength of her blows. They lacked the power of his, but he was twice her size so that was not a surprise. Her curved blades meant her style was entirely different to his own, and for the first few minutes he had to concentrate solely on blocking her blows rather than looking for potential weaknesses. She was unafraid to fight in close quarters, and in short order they both had to slow attacks that would have been deadly if they had met their mark.

 

The only warning that he had was a glitter of amusement in her eyes, and then he was feet away, having lept back on pure instinct. The golden edge of a sword - or rather a double-bladed staff - swung mere millimetres from his guts, although he could see she had slowed the blow to half speed. He had no idea how she had gone from having two very sharp swords to one very sharp, very long staff, but it was an excellent trick - though one he was glad he had not met in a real fight.

 

Selah herself stood leaning on her weapon while Geralt recovered from nearly being gutted as their audience loudly insulted Geralt’s sword skills, footwork, and heritage. The mobile side of her face was creased into a smirk, and it occurred to Geralt that it was perhaps the first time he’d seen anything like a smile on her. But then a heavy cloud seemed to pass over, and she swung her staff around to break it in two so once again she carried her paired golden swords. She sheathed her weapons and offered him a short bow which he returned, then turned on her heel and walked back towards the castle.

 

Geralt watched her go, no stranger to the vagaries of grief. He didn’t know what Alaesa had been to her - sister, friend, lover - but he didn’t think it mattered. Death took them, all the same.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

In September Lambert turned up with most of his ribs broken. He stayed for a week, insulted everything in Corvo Bianco except the cooking—he was annoying, not stupid—then went on his way.

 

Regis and Dettlaff arrived on December 1st, as regular as clockwork, and stayed a full month. Geralt had meant to tell them about kura and the portals and the dead worlds, but the longer he went without word the further away the danger seemed. He took some few contracts, killing an inordinate amount of ghouls in Hwen after a bunch of idiots had decided to try their hand at grave robbing. The estate was quiet in winter, and as the wind howled outside Geralt was once again grateful to have thick walls and fur-lined blankets between him and it. Even with his mutations there was something decidedly uncomfortable about being cold and wet.

 

He finally received a letter from Ciri in January to tell him that the Aen Saevherne had come back from their scouting with no sign of the kura, though they would not be able to reach the distances needed to travel as far as Selah and her people had. That power had been lost to them for centuries. They had calculated that the time they had before the creatures reached their world could be measured in years rather than months, she wrote, and also that she would try to visit soon.

 

He was expecting Dandelion to stumble in one morning in early March when the sound of hooves drifted in from further up the path, but when BB announced their last guest it was Yennefer, dressed in furs against the cold.

 

They stared at each other for a beat too long, before BB cleared his throat and announced that he would send for some refreshments.

 

“Er, how was your journey?” Geralt asked, wincing internally at how much of an idiot he sounded.

 

Yennefer quirked an eyebrow, “Wow, is that your attempt at small talk?”

 

He gave her a baleful look as she took off her fur and generally made herself comfortable. As she continued to fuss, he realised that she was as unsure of him as he was of her. They had never really gotten the chance to be friends, there had been too much between them for that, but last he’d seen her he’d extended the invitation to Corvo Bianco and here she was. He tried again, determined to make the effort.

 

“I received a letter from Ciri last month,” he said.

 

Yen looked up at that, genuine interest on her face. “Is she well? I mean to visit her in the spring.”

 

“Yes, she seems well enough. Have you seen her since the summer?” He added.

 

“No, why? What did you do?” she asked, accusingly.

 

“Why does everyone always assume things are my fault?”

 

BB coughed delicately as he entered with food and drink, and Yen smirked at him as if the majordomo had agreed with her.

 

They helped themselves to drinks and Geralt tried to give an abbreviated summary of the portal and the creatures, but Yen interrupted so often to clarify some detail or other that he ended up just telling the whole story to her over the course of the evening.

 

“So she asked him to swear on your life?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And you can’t understand why?”

 

“No,” he replied, with considerably less patience than when he’d started the story.

 

“Geralt, I remember once we had gone to the palace about something or other and you strode into the Emperor's presence like you owned the place, weapons still strapped to your back. During the conversation Emhyr made some comment you obviously found humour in and _you laughed at him_ like the great idiot you are. I honestly thought we were going to die. But Emhyr just gave you a dark look and then carried on like it hadn’t happened.” She gave an elegant half-shrug, “I have no idea what the elves saw, but it is clear to anyone that he holds you in high regard.”

 

He blinked at her. That wasn’t the reaction he’d been expecting. He’d half thought it was some trick, some convoluted plan that Emhyr had engineered for some far future benefit. The idea that Emhyr simply _liked_ him just hadn’t occurred to him.

 

“Are you having an epiphany over there? Shall I give you a moment?”

 

Geralt ignored her, thinking about how sometimes Emhyr could be convinced to play a round of gwent or two. On a couple of memorable occasions, when Emhyr had drank enough to be mellow, he’d agreed to some game that Geralt knew. Despite Geralt making up the rules as he went along, Emhyr still managed to win a fair amount of the time. Dear gods and monsters, they were _friends_. He was _friends_ with _Emhyr var Emreis_.

 

“Ah, there it is,” Yen commented, toasting him before draining the rest of her glass.

 

“I’m friends with Emhyr var Emreis, Yen,” he said, just to hear it out loud.

 

She gave him a pitying look, then turned the conversation back to the portal and shield that the elves had used to move between worlds.

 

There was a moment as they went up to bed that Geralt thought maybe he was expected to kiss her, but she simply stood on her toes so she could kiss his cheek then went down the hall to the guest bedroom.

 

He touched the place where she’s kissed him and, didn’t make a wish as such, but thought of his hope that they could be friends.

 

She stayed for three more days, reading in the day in his small library and drinking a fair amount of his wine in the evening. Sometimes it was awkward with silences that stretched when they realised they had found their way onto a topic that was fraught for one reason or another, but without either of them trying to score a hit those moments were easier to navigate.

 

She left, stating her intention to head to the Capital to see if her magical skills could be of some use now that she was aware there was a problem. Geralt though vaguely to himself that he was due a visit himself, and then promptly forgot until Ciri walked through a portal in his vegetable garden three weeks later.

 

“Hello,” he said, as she pulled him into a welcome hug, “I though Emhyr said you shouldn’t do that anymore.”

 

“He said not to do it in anyone’s sight if I can help it,” she replied, which seemed like splitting hairs to him but he didn’t call her out on it.

 

“It’s been nine months,” she accused.

 

He held up his hands in surrender, “I was just starting to plan a visit and also you said there was no immediate danger.”

 

BB came around the corner then and looked at them with heavy disapproval until they took themselves inside and sat down like the semi-civilised adults they were.

 

“I need a favour,” she said, once BB had stopped fussing and bringing them things to eat and drink.

 

“You do or your father does?” Geralt asked, just to be contrary.

 

“The elves have decided that they would like to see the last stronghold of their kind here,” Ciri continued, ignoring him completely, “and so will be travelling to Dol Blathanna at the end of the week. I’d like it if you could accompany them.”

 

“Me? Why me? If Selah is going with them then I assure you they’re perfectly capable of looking after themselves on the road.”

 

“That’s just it. They’ve been protected somewhat from prejudice in Nilfgaard, especially so close to the Capital. You’re an excellent guide and only true idiots would be stupid enough to challenge you—you’ll be able to keep them away from the worst of the non-human hatred.”

 

“Okay, what’s the other reason?” Geralt asked.

 

Ciri looked away, so at least he knew the second reason would be Emyhr’s doing.

 

“They come from a people at the height of their power, to a people at the lowest ebb of theirs. _Both_ Emhyr and I are concerned over the possible outcome of such a meeting.”

 

Geralt frowned into his drink for a moment, “I don’t think they came here to conquer anyone, Ciri, or to encourage any conquering.”

 

“No, nor do I. Nor does Emhyr,”—Geralt snorted—“But Dol Blathanna is a good place. It is a safe place, but only at the sufferance of its closest neighbours. The Empire would defend their sovereignty if it ever came to it, but it is very, very far from the Capital. Don’t let ideas of ancient glory cause the elves to come to any harm, that’s all we—that’s all _I_ —am asking.”

 

-

 

It was a little over a three-week ride to Dol Blathanna, during which Geralt got to witness first-hand how far Selah’s grasp of Elder Speech had come. He’d asked Dakat why she hadn’t chosen to learn Common first, to which he’d grimaced in response. Some days she said little, but when she did decide to practice he learnt that she had the frankly unnerving habit of baring her teeth when she couldn’t think of the right word. The first time she’d done it he’d glanced over at Dakat to make sure it hadn’t been something he’d said, but Dakat had just caught his eye and shook his head slightly, so they were obviously leaving that one alone. He privately vowed not to let Selah speak to any locals until she had a better mastery of the language. Or she stopped being terrifying, whichever came first.  

 

They were also accompanied by elven twins, Faelyn and Taeglyn, identical except that Faelyn was missing her left arm. She wore her coat with one arm sewn up, which made Geralt think of all the elves he’d seen with such wounds, especially after the wars. Most of them though had worn artificial limbs and strong glamours.

 

They were from Selah’s world and therefore Dakat had been dragged into the current conversation to translate. The twins often spoke over each other and were loud and boisterous in a way that was almost charming to watch, although Geralt was glad he wasn’t the one doing the translating.

 

“I was born like this,” Faelyn was saying, via Dakat, while waving her abbreviated arm in the air. Geralt hadn’t asked, but so far he seemed to be being treated to their life story, “but Taeglyn copied me.”

 

Taeglyn was grinning and had her hand almost in Geralt’s face before Dakat had finished his translation, so Geralt had the experience of Taeglyn’s right hand—minus the three fingers she had lost somehow—being waved under his nose with no explanation.

 

Faelyn added something that made Taeglyn guffaw and Dakat sigh.

 

“Faelyn would like you to know that, despite having only one hand, she is more that capable of performing any task you might imagine of her,” Dakat said.

 

Geralt blinked at that then turned to Faelyn who waggled both eyebrows and both ears at him, while Taeglyn nearly fell off her horse.

 

When Ciri had asked him to accompany the elves this was definitely not what he’d envisioned.

 

The next day was much quieter though. The twins seemed to have undergone a personality change in the night, with Faelyn riding out in front and Taeglyn sharing Selah’s horse, where she was slumped behind the older elf, asleep.

 

Dakat rode alongside Geralt, speaking of innocuous subjects as he practised his Common Speech which, unsurprisingly for a linguist, was already impressive. Then again, it was hard to imagine Dakat doing anything as unseemly as getting a tense wrong. No sooner had he had the thought than an image rose in his mind: Dakat on his knees in the mud with Selah, speaking low, desperate words to her as she struggled to get to the rapidly closing portal.

 

“What is it?” Dakat asked, switching back to Elder Speech.

 

“Nothing, sorry, you were asking about the seasons?” Geralt promoted in Common.

 

Dakat looked at him narrowly for a moment, before continuing in Elder Speech as if Geralt hadn’t spoken.

 

“They were triplets, you know,” he said, making a brief gesture to the twins up ahead, “three siblings out of the tens and thousands who originally escaped Selah’s world.”

 

“What happened to their third?” Geralt asked, though he thought he could guess.

 

“She died,” Dakat stated, simply. “Some four thousand souls escaped with Selah, now there are only three of them.”

 

“And your world?” Geralt asked.

 

“The kura had already destroyed my world. I was one of some two hundred refugees that Selah stumbled across as she went from world to world, looking for somewhere safe. There are a few of us left.”

 

Whole worlds, dead. It was hard to grasp.

 

Selah’s great _dythi_ bird chose that moment to alight on the back on Dakat’s saddle, saving him from having to think of anything intelligent to say to such loss. It regarded Geralt with first one beady eye then the other, turning it’s head to do so.

 

“Clever creature, isn’t it?” Geralt remarked.

 

Dakat gave a soft whistle and the bird hopped over up onto the pommel of his saddle, as if to prove Geralt’s words. Dakat smiled a little at it, but made not move to touch or stroke it.

 

“It is—was—Alaesa’s familiar,” he explained.

 

Apparently Geralt was doomed to blunder through this conversation, careening from one uncomfortable topic to another.

 

“I spoke to a sorceress who said that the shield spell Selah described was beyond anything she’d ever heard of—she must have been extremely powerful,” he offered.

 

“She was.” Dakat acknowledged. “I once heard a sage speak on magic and the great stories of impossible feats that our elders told of,” he continued, “he said that magic was mostly wielded by power and skill, but a little of it was born out of necessity. As need for magic diminishes, so will our ability to wield it, so that one day there will be no more magic, and no more monsters.”

 

Geralt thought of the things he had seen, the wanton destruction and horror of the monsters he’d fought over the years. Of the kura that at this very moment was destroying whole peoples as they crept ever closer to his own small bright spark of a world.

 

“That’s a nice idea,” he said.

 

“Yes,” Dakat agreed, “it is.”

 

-

 

They approached Dol Blathanna from the south around the low foothills of the Blue Mountains, down a narrow pass that Geralt remembered from his last time there. More accessible routes had been hewn out of the rock to the North for trade, but this entrance remained little-used and overgrown. Selah rode a little way ahead and he heard her low gasp as she rounded the last bend and saw the city in the valley below. As he, Dakat and the twins caught up with her the rush of the waterfalls that fell in perpetuity from the city’s high walls reached him, and even the twins fell silent at the sight.

 

“I did not know that such things existed in your world,” Taeglyn said, via Dakat.

 

“Well they mostly don’t,” Geralt replied, seeing no advantage to his companions to honey the truth. Of the great elven cities that remained, none save Dol Blathanna was inhabited solely, or even mostly, by elves.

 

The twins remained wide-eyed as the horses carefully picked their way down the rocky path, the domes and great scoreceder trees that grew between, around and through the building growing in size as they got closer to the main gates.

 

They were halted by guards as they approached the city proper and made to wait while messengers ran to verify Geralt’s claims that their Queen was expecting them. Selah and the twins were ignored, but the guards seemed fascinated by the beads that Dakat wore in his hair, asking the meaning of each one in turn. They had not been ordered to hide their origins, but Geralt knew that Ciri had asked them to be circumspect in explaining the reason for their exodus from their own worlds, so Dakat told them a little of his library work and no more.

 

Finally they were allowed through and escorted up to the palace, which looked like it was in danger of crumbling into dust to Geralt’s eyes. High arches twisted with vines let in the the sharp mountain air, and their footsteps echoed back to them from above.

 

Francesca, or Queen Gleanna as it was probably wiser to call her, was gracious in her welcome, but Geralt sensed wariness from her in the face of these strange elves from another world. She seemed determined to show Dol Blathanna to it’s best advantage insisting they first dine with her, then handing them off to one of her sages who duly pointed out each and every statue, tapestry and paving stone in the palace complex.

 

Selah seemed interested at least, asking questions in her limited Elder Speech or via Dakat depending on the complexity of the inquiry. The sage seemed a little overwhelmed, having to admit ignorance to many of Selah’s questions until eventually she fell silent. The tour continued for an indeterminable time, until even the twins were starting to flag. Geralt firmly asked to be taken to their rooms at that point.

 

“What is it?” He asked Selah, who had moved from animated to quiet.

 

“They do not know the names of their forebears,” she replied, as if announcing they practised cannibalism.

 

Geralt must have looked a little lost, as she called to Dakat who was walking ahead with the twins. He dropped back and said something to Selah in her own language, she replied at length, Dakat nodding as she spoke.

 

The palace was big enough that they were still being escorted to their rooms. Dakat dropped his voice a little as he turned back to Geralt, glancing at the guards that accompanied them as he did so.

 

“In pre-First Age Elder Speech there is a saying: _kith ut kirth_ . It means, ‘lines and dirt’—it acknowledges that no matter how great the warrior, how skilful the weaver, they must remember who their ancestors are and where they come from. Without these things, they are _nasedhien_ —‘lost ones’ and they will never reach their full potential.” Dakat paused as they reached their destination, the twins racing to secure their rooms in the large suite they had been shown to. Selah thanked their escorts on behalf of them all and they bowed to each other as they left. Geralt helped himself to the fruit that had been left out for them while Dakat continued his explanation.

 

“The fact that our escorts could not name their great statues, that they are unable to return to their place of birth to bless their families graves—it is... “ He shook his head, without words for the first time since Geralt had met him.

 

Selah offered a word in her own language, and Dakat translated, “abhorrent. It is abhorrent.”

 

Geralt was aware in a general way of the depth of the horror that humans had perpetrated on the non-human natives of this world, but elves were understandably reticent to discuss such things with him. He found himself at a loss for something to say, and was grateful to the twins when the sound of something big being dropped on the floor got them to their feet and broke the atmosphere.

The next day he left Selah and Dakat to their own devices, instead taking the twins down to the river. Communicating without Dakat turned out not to be the nightmare he would have thought. Mostly he just said their names in as stern a voice as he could manage when one or both were about to do something stupid. It had never worked on Ciri when she was younger of course, but the twins mostly listened to him.

While he’d been minding his own business and preventing either of the twins from causing a diplomatic incident, Selah had apparently been petitioning the great temple to let her perform a ritual from her own world. Dakat came to fetch him and the twins from further down the valley where he’d been attempting to teach them to fish. They had succeeded in soaking each other and Geralt but not much else.

 

Dakat gave an abbreviated description of the ritual while they went back to their rooms to fetch dry clothes. It was a common rite that was well-known in Selah’s world, but had been lost to time in Dakat’s own. It involved communicating with elven ancestors in order to ask them to perform some feat that would reaffirm the faithful’s belief. In this case it was to be the lighting of the torches that lined the main street to the temple, which was a simple enough trick that even Geralt, with his limited magic, could’ve managed it. He was not about to mention this to Dakat though, who seemed, well, not excited, but more animated than usual at the prospect of witnessing a ritual from a long-dead religion.

 

He was not the only one who was looking forward to the show, judging by the number of elves that lined the main street when they arrived. The twins were unusually solemn as they took their place as guests of the Queen, and Geralt resolved to keep a close eye on them.  Selah and six priestesses stood five feet or so in front of the low dais that had been set up for the Queen and her attendants. The priestesses wore their traditional robes, but Selah was wearing the same dusty clothes she had travelled in, the only concession she seemed to have made to the occasion was that she was barefoot, along with the other priestesses, and that she was not visibly armed.

 

At some unseen signal, the two thousand or so strong crowd went silent. The priestesses bowed their heads a little and, on the very edge of his hearing, Geralt could hear them start to chant. It was a low, mournful sound, that swelled and fell, swelled and fell, until it reached a full pitch that seemed to carry forever in the still cold of the mountain air.

 

If there were words in the chant then Gerat didn’t understand them, but meaning tugged at him regardless, just out of reach. There was no magic in the song, he knew that for sure, but when another wave of sound rolled through the crowd Geralt felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Drummers took up the pulsing beat and, as one, the six priestesses—including Selah—took a step forwards towards the temple. Another beat, another step. Slow, deliberate movements inched them closer to their goal, the chant rising and falling like a living thing around them. Geralt felt himself sway a little, almost against his will. All around him usually impassive elves became caught in the rhythm, stamping their feet in time to the heavy thrum of the drums. The twins hummed along, almost under their breath, and Queen Gleanna watched their progress with rapt attention.

 

Then, as the priestesses reached the steps of the temple, the chant swelled and stopped, leaving a breathless silence in its wake. The priestesses ascended the many steps into the Temple until they were lost to even Geralt’s eyes.

 

They stood waiting for so long that the crowd around him began to murmur. Geralt could stand motionless and ready for hours if necessary, but even he was caught a little off guard when something finally did happen.

 

The wave of sentience that spilled up from below the temple and out over the crowd was nothing like what he had expected. This was no simple magic trick: this was a rush of power along a line of lineage that linked one elf to the next, far into the ancient past. It was electric and filled with the whispered knowledge of uncountable dead. The torches flared to brilliant life around him, flames leaping, then those further away were lit, until in the far distance of the mountains pinpricks of light rushed into life.

 

Elves seemed to shudder around him, their eyes brighter, their backs straighter, as if this archaic show of power had revived something long lost to them. Then the wave of the dead rolled back to the single point it had emerged from, and he felt cold in its wake.

 

The priestesses emerged from the temple to a stunned silence. One of the priestesses took two steps down towards the crowd then tipped her head back and let out a victorious cry. Around him elves echoed her: stamping their feet and crying out, their voices echoing back from the houses and mountains that surrounded them.

 

Emhyr was going to kill him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Selah's abilities in Elder Speech are (very loosely )based on my own skills in a language after 9 months of intensive study.
> 
> The chant that I based the ritual on is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOU4nDWsVGo) if anyone is interested. 
> 
> The chapter count is my best guess ^^


	4. Chapter 4

 

Geralt had thought they weren’t going to be allowed to leave. Or, at least, that Queen Gleanna was going to stop them from taking Selah. Selah, for her part, seemed blissfully unaware of the gleam in the Queen’s eyes as she’d spoken of the beauty of Dol Blathanna and how there would always be a place for her and her fellow elves. Once Selah had realised that any welcome would not extend to the other peoples she had bought through the portal she seemed to dismiss the city completely, asking Geralt pointedly in Elder Speech when they were to return. They had not planned to stay longer than a week, so it was no hardship to load up their packs and be on their way.

 

They were given so much food to take with them that Geralt privately worried about wolves following them on the way back. The twins handily solved the problem by eating the majority of the fresh food within two days of them leaving Dol Blathanna.

 

Dakat was his most constant companion on their return. Selah having retreated a little into her own world and the twins, who were sensitive to her moods, mostly followed her lead. The days went by quickly, and Geralt was glad that he had agreed to accompany the elves—he had spent too much time indoors of late and, as much as he enjoyed having a home and friends to visit it, he missed the freedom of the road.

 

“How is the search for a way to hide from the kura going?” He asked Dakat, at the beginning of their second week of travel. Dakat had been conversing with increasing confidence in Common, to the point where the twins had insisted on learning some phrases themselves. Geralt has spent a pleasant morning a few days prior teaching them the worst insults he knew while Dakat reluctantly translated and the twins shrieked with laughter.

 

Dakat seemed to consider his answer for a moment, which probably wasn’t a good sign.

 

“The Emperor’s magic users and our sages are reasonably sure that they can identify the ley lines whereby magic flows into this world.”

 

Geralt let the silence hang for a moment to see if there was any more than ‘we probably know where the hole we need to block up is’, but that seemed to be the sum total of the progress report.

 

Conversation petered out for the rest of the evening, and they made camp quickly. For the most part Geralt had avoided staying anywhere smaller than a large town, not wanting to expose the elves to any non-human prejudice if he could help it. The elves hadn’t even seemed to notice. He imaged their current sleeping arrangements where much better than the ones they had become accustomed to.

 

They were headed back to the Capital rather than the makeshift town that was being constructed next to the Runswick. Ciri had requested they return to the palace to discuss progress, but Geralt half-thought that Emhyr wanted to check no-one had started a revolution among the elves. Geralt was almost sure he could safely say no to that question.

 

Three weeks into their return journey, Geralt awoke to worried whispers, just as dawn was inching over the horizon. He hauled himself out of the nest of blankets he’d wrapped himself in in the night and went to investigate.

 

Faelyn and Taeglyn were the centre of whatever the trouble was: they stood near where the horses were tethered, obviously thinking themselves out of hearing range. As he strode over to them his heart sank: Selah’s mount was gone.

 

“Any sign of a struggle?” he asked the twins, miming what he hoped was an understandable action. They shook their heads. He looked around for himself, but there was nothing—he ground around the remaining horses had been swept flat. How she had covered the tracks of both herself and her mount was a question for when they found her, if she had gone voluntarily of course, but he couldn’t imagine how anyone would have been able to spirit her away without some kind of fight.

 

“Okay, you wake Dakat,” he said, placing his hand at the right height to indicate the elf, then pointing back the way they’d come, “and take the road, I’ll take Roach and see if I can pick up a trail.”

 

He rode towards the small copse he could see in the distance. It was the route he would have gone if he was hoping not to be found. Beyond the trees were large, tiled fields that belonged to the nearest village, and as he rode he realised there was something familiar about them: he was not far from the place the portal had opened.

 

More sure of his destination, he spurred Roach in to a canter. Sure enough, as he came over the crest of the next hill, he could see a small figure kneeling in the middle of a field that was just starting to re-seed and a horse tied to a tree in the distance. He dismounted, but was suddenly unsure if he should approach or return for the others.

 

He stood for a moment, undecided, then something clicked into place in his head. Walking back a little way he bent under a great Aker tree that grew at the field’s western boundary, picking up and discarding seed buds until he found one that smelt lush and alive. He then turned and walked towards the figure in the middle of the field, giving Roach an absent pat as he passed her.

 

He made sure his footfalls sounded as he approached, and when he reached Selah he sat down to the side of her, two handspans of space between them. Selah gave no indication that she’d heard him, her gaze fixed in the middle distance and her hands still in her lap.

 

Geralt licked his lips, unsure where to begin. He talked a little about Ciri at first, as it was a subject he could carry on for hours without any input from a conversational partner, then he found himself talking about Vesemir and, inevitably, about his death. He was speaking in Elder Speech, but he was unsure how much Selah understood. The general gist must have gotten through though, as when he wiped at his eyes Selah was looking at him, her expression reflecting his own grief. He reached into his pocket and handed her the seed pod. She looked down at it for a moment, then leant forward to dig a shallow trough in earth. She put in the seed then patted the earth down, sitting back on her heels.

 

“Ready?” Geralt asked.

 

She nodded, rolling gracefully to her feet. She put out her hand for Geralt, and he gratefully took the help up.

 

As they rode back to the camp, Geralt’s mind wandered. He wanted to ask about the ritual he had seen, and was trying to think of a way to phrase the question that would be simple enough to understand in Elder Speech without being horribly patronising.

 

“You carry a question,” Selah stated, with what Geralt understood to be characteristic clairvoyance.

 

She gestured to her own face when he looked over to her. “Think face,” she explained.  

 

He decidedly did not want to know what his ‘think face’ looked like.

 

“Why did you ask Emhyr to swear on my life that he would keep to the agreement?” He asked, instead of the hundreds of other, more important questions he should’ve asked.

 

Selah tilted her head in the universal sign for, ‘what are you talking about, Geralt?’

 

“Agreement, between Selah and Emhyr?” he tried.

 

She nodded.

 

“My life,” he touched the centre of his chest, “Emhyr agreed—promised—on my life.”

 

Understanding lit her eyes, “yes, you are important.”

 

Well, Yen had made that clear to him, although he thought that perhaps ‘important’ was something of an overstatement. He couldn’t help but worry at what it was that people saw in Emhyr’s behaviour that made his regard so clear to everyone except Geralt.

 

“To the Emperor,” she added, as if to clarify.

 

“Why do you think so?” He asked.

 

She seemed to consider her words.

 

“He looked to you sometimes, to guide. You give—” she bared her teeth in frustration as she searched for the word “— _tsurair._ ”

 

Geralt repeated the word to himself, but the repetition gave no clue to its meaning.

 

Once they were in view of the camp the twins came running towards them, waving their arms and shouting and generally making their displeasure clear to Selah. She got down from her horse when they were close enough and allowed them to check her over with good grace.

 

Later, when they were once again on their way, he repeated the word to Dakat, who gave it’s translation.

 

“It depends on the context, but I would most likely translate it as ‘balance’ or ‘equilibrium’. Sometimes it also means ‘peace’.”

 

-

 

When they arrived back at the Capital Geralt was disappointed to learn that Ciri was away to the South, visiting the sparsely populated mountains that encompassed the Southern border of the Nilfgaard. He dined that evening with Yen, whom Ciri had asked to stay to lend her magical expertise to the problem of the kura. He quickly learned that Dakat’s summary of progress and been accurate, and they were no closer to any kind of solution. The Aen Saevherne had taken the decision to travel to the furthest worlds they could reach to begin to warn inhabitants. He was surprised to hear that no small number  of the people who had come through the portal had volunteered for the undertaking as well, and he briefly thought to make sure that Selah didn’t hear of it. He was almost certain that she would not volunteer for something so dangerous, but grief made people do stupid things.

 

Yen asked him to stay a little while to help and he agreed, though he wasn’t sure how much use he would be. He also wasn’t sure that Yen had the necessary status to be giving out invites to the Emperor's palace, but that didn’t seem to have ever occurred to her. Regardless, Ciri would be back within the week and he’d be glad to see her.

 

It took him two days to realise that he was avoiding Emhyr, and he was annoyed enough with himself that he put down the book he was reading and went directly to Emhyr’s study.

 

He slowed a little as he neared, thinking he should have first tracked down Mererid to make sure that he wasn’t about to walk in on an important meeting or anything. He was close enough for the guards to spot him however, and they had already started to stand aside, so he had no choice but to continue in and hope he wasn’t about to be hung for impertinence.

 

Emhyr seemed not at all surprised to see him, however. He simply waved Geralt to a seat whilst he read, then indicated to his attendants to leave them when he had finished and signed whatever it was.

 

“How’s the plan to hide all the magic in the world going?” Geralt asked for something to say, helping himself to some sweets that were probably only on the table for decorative purposes.

 

“Well, so far I have fired four mages, but have restrained myself from having any put to death for gross idiocy,” Emhyr replied, steepling his fingers in front of his face as he did so.

 

“That good eh?”

 

“Lady Yennefer has proved useful in that she at least has been able to articulate _why_ the plans put forward so far are doomed to fail. I also have advised that the next idiot to quote the Divis Paradox at me will be hung.”

 

“Do actually you need to use magic to hide magic?” Geralt mused aloud.

 

Emhyr gave him a sour look, “yes, that’s the one.”

 

Geralt grinned at him, wondering at himself for having avoided this.

 

“How was your expedition to Dol Blathanna?” Emhyr asked, “I am told that Selah raised the gods and set the world alight, but I’m hoping that is an exaggeration.”

 

“Er, actually that’s not too far off.”

 

Emhyr lowered his hands and leaned forward and Geralt, realising his mistake, backtracked quickly. The last thing any of them needed at this point was a paranoid Emhyr starting a war with a handful of elves.

 

“Selah and the priestesses of the temple carried out an old rite from her world. They called on the ancients to light the torches that lined the entrance, which is a trick that even I could do,” he said, allowing a little dismissiveness to come through into his voice. He was aided by the fact that every word was true: it was something he could do, although, not in quite the way the elves had gone about it. He thought again of the strange power that they’d called up and suppressed a shudder.

 

“And Queen Gleanna’s reaction to our guests?”

 

“She was curious, in fact she made it clear that the elves were welcome to stay, but Selah was uninterested once she realised that the invite would not extend to the rest of her people.”

 

Emhyr nodded, then looked expectantly at Geralt. Of course Emhyr would have other things to do rather than chat to Geralt—he’d come by without warning in the middle of the day. He tried to think of some way to extend the conversation, but he couldn’t have said why if pressed.

 

“Was there something else?” Emhyr asked, when Geralt hesitated.

 

“Why did Selah ask you to swear on my life?” he blurted. Some part of him—a part that couldn’t quite believe that a man like Emhyr could care anything for a common witcher—wanted to hear Emhyr acknowledge their friendship.

 

“What do you want me to say?”

 

“Well, the truth would be nice if you can manage it,” Geralt replied, a little stung. Perhaps asking Emhyr to admit to caring was too much to ask of him, even though he seemed to have no such issue when it came to Ciri.

 

Emhyr pushed away from his desk and walked over to the windows, his hands behind his back.

 

“Do you know how many assassination attempts have been made of Cirilla since she became Crown Princess?”

 

Geralt was surprised at the question as, as far as he knew, ‘none’ was the answer.

 

“Seven,” Emhyr continued, his hands briefly flexing against each other where they were held behind his back. “Seven attempts,” he repeated, “none of which were in any danger of success, but only because of where she is, of how she is protected.” He held up a hand as if to put a stop to whatever Geralt was about to say, but Geralt was too stuck on the idea of _seven_ assassination attempts to interrupt, “I know she is perfectly capable of defending herself, as are you, but you must understand why this cannot be.”

 

Geralt did start to interrupt then, feeling that they had twisted down some unexpected direction. Conversations with Emhyr were often like this: like swimming against a current. But Emhyr continued, unaware of Geralt’s confusion. “I would not ask you to wait, it may yet be years before I am retired. I promised Cirilla that I would support her until she was in a position so strong that she need not marry for anything other than love. Or at all, if she so wishes.”

 

When he’d been new to the Path, Geralt had set what he’d thought to be a very clever trap for an Alp. He’d strolled into its cramped lair confident of his success, only to realise at the last minute that there were three of them waiting for him and that he was most likely going to die. He felt the same sense of absolute clarity now, the same sense of horror at his mistake. Emhyr loved him, and he hadn’t known until this very moment. Until it was too late.  

 

“Excuse me,” he said, blindly getting up and making his way back to his rooms. Geralt could see Emhyr turn and watch him as he left, but he remained silent.

 

-

 

Geralt debated going back to Corvo Bianco, but he didn’t want to have to explain why he was leaving to Yen, and he really did want to see Ciri. He spent the next two days sparring with guards and Selah, trawling through crumbling texts with Yen, and eating a truly amazing amount of food. The cooks at the palace seemed to have taken Geralt’s appetite as a personal challenge to their skills and Geralt was doing nothing to discourage them.

 

Finally, when Selah was moved to ask him what was wrong, he realised that he was mourning—mourning for something he hadn’t known he’d had, something that was now beyond his reach. Emhyr had kept his secret for the gods knew how long and had made a decision on behalf of both of them that it was in their best interest not to pursue… well, not to pursue anything. He tried to put the whole thing out of his mind, but more than once he found himself considering what it would be like to kiss Emhyr, to take him to bed and see him come apart under his hands. He trod down hard on the thoughts. Idle wonderings of something that could not be were no use to anyone.

 

Ciri returned on the fourth day and was delighted enough by Geralt’s presence that he made an effort to be upbeat for her sake.

 

“Is the reason you’re moping the same as the reason my father is moping, by any chance?” Ciri asked, once he had caught her up on the dismal state of their research efforts.

 

Geralt grunted in reply, feigning interest in his wine.

 

“He doesn’t let anyone else cheat him at Gwent you know,” she confided, with a smile.

 

“I know that _now,”_ Geralt replied with more force than he’d meant to.

 

“Sorry, sorry,” he added, and reached to refill her glass in apology.

 

“I’m sorry,” Ciri said, eventually, “I didn’t mean to pry.”

 

“It’s nothing.”

 

She didn’t believe him but she did drop the subject which was good enough for Geralt.

 

He had mistakenly believed that having Ciri back would relieve him of the tedious task of reading through scrolls that had half crumbled into dust, but it was not to be. He spent a significant amount of time in one of the two libraries in the palace along with an army of translators and mages, looking for some mention of either the kura of some way to hide the magic of this world from them. Or a way to destroy them entirely, but that was most likely wishful thinking at this point.

 

Yen ran her realm with an iron fist, and he’d seen more than one mage discretely wipe away tears after she had explained to them why they were an idiot and how poor their magical theory was. Geralt was keeping any and all suggestions to himself.

  
So far the most promising find had been a prophecy about an ancient wave of evil that would rise up and swallow all worlds. That had not been the most uplifting day.  

 

Dakat came in and Geralt looked up hopefully—the elf was a much more sought-after helper than Geralt and more than once Yen had allowed him to slink off to something less horrifically boring once Dakat had arrived.

 

“Ah, Dakat,” Yen started, but stopped at the look at his face.

 

“What is it?” Geralt asked.

 

“It’s Selah.” Dakar said, and Geralt tensed for whatever was coming next, “She has learnt of the plan to send people to other worlds to warn them of the kura and has expressed a wish to join them. I wondered if perhaps you could talk to her?”

 

Geralt tried to hide his surprise. He didn’t think that his words would have much sway, but he was oddly touched that Dakat had thought to ask him.

 

“Er, sure,” he replied, “any idea where she is?”

 

“Up on the battlements of the second tower. She was not pleased with me or the world in general when I left her.”

 

Geralt took his leave from both and started to make his way from the libraries to the middle of the palace where the main staircases led up to the higher levels. There were servant staircases that were nearer, and more than one secret passageway that he probably wasn’t supposed to be aware of, but he avoided using them if at all possible as it tended to result in Emhyr being disappointed in him. He pulled his thoughts sharply back to Selah as he began the long hike up to the battlements.

 

When he reached the top he braced himself as he stepped out into the wide open space. As expected he was instantly buffeted by the wind, which whipped his hair in front of his eyes for a moment.

 

Selah was stood at the edge, looking not down but off into the cool blue of the March sky.

 

“She’s not there,” Geralt said from behind her.

 

Her back stiffened.

 

“I know you know, but sometimes we need to hear it: she’s not there—it wouldn’t be possible for her to have survived this long alone.” It was an awful truth, but it had to be said.

 

“I know,” Selah said, without turning to him, her shoulders slumping.

 

Geralt didn’t know what else to say to offer comfort. She had never invited touch, and he could think of no words that he hadn’t already said.

 

She turned around and smiled her half-smile, as if sensing his struggles.

 

“You want to spar?” He asked, like the idiot he was.

 

She grinned outright then and shook her head at him, not as a refusal but more like an acknowledgement of his general stupidity.

 

She pushed away from the stone wall and lead them down to the training grounds while Geralt tried to be annoyed at himself for having apparently adopted yet another person. He was supposed to be a Witcher, travelling the lonely Path, not picking up ex-blood addict vampires and sad elves from other realms and practicing his limited social skills on them. He blamed Ciri, he decided as they began to warm up, blades singing through the air. He wasn’t sure how, but it was undoubtedly her fault.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Kit, who kicked this into shape for me xx

 

Six Aen Saevherne stood among the lush grasses of spring. They had gathered a little way apart from the rest of their party, their cloaks casting their faces in deep shadow. Geralt could hear well enough across the field to discern that Selah was speaking to them in her own language, though how they understood it was a mystery he was leaving well alone. The _dythi_ bird circled overhead, its occasional cries seeming to mute the warmth of the spring day.  

 

Geralt was helping the few volunteers from Selah’s ranks check their supplies one last time, offering silent support when he could think of no words to say. The Aen Saevherne had reluctantly revealed the limits to the strength of their portals, but by Yen’s reckoning they would only need to go half that distance before they came to the worlds that the kura had already reached.

 

Geralt, Dakat and the twins had come to an unvoiced agreement that someone was to keep an eye on Selah at all times until the last of the volunteers had gone through the portal and it had been collapsed again. Ciri had very reluctantly come to a compromise with her head of security that suited neither, and was stood a little further back in case there was any problem with the portal. A company of Nilfgaard’s finest stood at the ready on the off-chance that all their calculations had been wrong and the kura were within touching distance of their own world.

 

Selah and Faelyn walked back towards them, Faelyn with the end of Selah’s long braid wrapped around her hand, as if she was counting on having some means of dragging Selah back if she did anything rash. Dakat directed a question to Selah in her own language, but it was Faelyn who replied. Selah instead looked up at the gyring bird and called out in an eerily accurate impression of its cry. In response it promptly dropped out of the sky to land on her shoulder with an audible impact.

 

Behind her, two of the Aen Saevherne had moved forward and were stood a few feet apart, chanting low. With a noise that was almost more felt than heard a portal ripped apart, and more than a few of the volunteers took a step backwards. Geralt knew to narrow his eyes against the winds that howled out from the portal, seeming to both usher him forward and push him further away.

 

Selah went to speak to those who would face death to give a warning to worlds full of peoples unknown to them. Taeglyn followed her this time, a hand slipped into the back of her sword belt and never more than half a step behind her. Faelyn tucked herself between Dakat and Geralt, her one arm looped through Dakat’s and the nub of her other arm resting on Geralt’s bicep. Geralt looked down at her, but she was watching Selah as if she might disappear if she blinked.

 

With little fanfare, the Aen Saevherne and a few volunteers started their journey to warn the other worlds of the coming threat, a journey that no one was expecting to return from.

 

Selah came back to them as the group stepped through the hole in their world, one by one. Her left shoulder drooped a little with the weight of the bird that had settled there, and Geralt could not help but notice that it had a loop of paper tied to one leg, the vague press of words visible where the light shone through it.

 

As the last of the Aen Saevherne crossed over, Alaesa’s familiar launched itself into the air. They all remained silent as the bird flew into the churning violence of the portal, carrying a message addressed to a woman long dead. He thought perhaps Selah knew the futility of the action, but he understood the need to have something physical to do, some action to take in the hope it would lessen the pain: he remembered building Vesemir’s pyre himself, stick by single stick.

 

It had been easy to forget the danger that moved ever closer to them. Easy to forget in the rhythm of the seasons and the constant research that suggested they were moving closer to an answer. Easy to forget the question Selah’s people had forced them to consider: how do you hide a whole world of magic? Yet, their safety was an illusion. They weren’t any closer to an answer than when Selah had ridden through a portal nearly a year ago. Alaesea had sacrificed herself so that her people might live, so that a world full of people she would never know, Geralt’s world, would have warning of the coming threat.

 

He rode with Ciri on the way back to the palace, telling himself that he would have done so regardless, that it was nothing to do with the stark reminder of how little time they had left.

 

-

 

Geralt had been promising himself for days that he would have this conversation, but there was always something more pressing to do. First the captain of the guard had come to tell him that he’d heard reports of a village a two-day ride away where the villagers were sacrificing travellers to some monster or other. It had turned out to be a group of humans who were murdering people then mutilating the bodies afterwards in an attempt to direct attention away from themselves. Geralt was glad to hand that one back over to Nilfgaardian justice. Then Yen had caught up with him and insisted he throw up a Quen shield again and again, while she took some incomprehensible measurements using a device that looked like a clock that had mated with a hand loom, then fallen out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. She had been unimpressed when he had shared this thought with her.

 

Eventually there was no further excuse. He entered Emhyr’s study unchallenged by the guards or attendants and sat down in front of the great desk that dominated the room. Emhyr continued writing for a moment before waving away his attendants. He didn’t look up from the papers he was reading, even when he spoke.

 

“No.”

      

“You don’t even know what I’ve come here to ask,” Geralt stated, despite the fact that Emhyr had guessed correctly.

 

“Just because you have come to recognise feelings in yourself that mirror my own does not negate my previous reservations.”

 

“Emhyr,” Geralt tried, sitting forward in his seat, “don’t you think I should get a say?”

 

“No,” came the inevitable reply, “You underestimate danger when it is solely to yourself and does not come from a source that has fangs and claws.”

 

“Emhyr…” he started, but Emhyr cut him off.

 

“No,” he repeated, finally looking up, “I have the senate snapping at my heels, aware there is some reason I am clinging onto power when Cirilla is ready to take the reigns, but I cannot tell them of the danger we are in without offering a reasonable counter to it—there would be chaos. Any, _any_ , perceived weakness would be exploited by all who wish to see me fall. This cannot be.”

 

Geralt gave that its due consideration, then he got up and walked around the desk, placing himself in front of Emhyr’s chair so that Emhyr had to look up to maintain eye contact.

 

“Please,” he said.

 

Emhyr held his gaze for half a second before looking away.

 

“Damn you,” he said, then got to his feet and pulled Geralt into a firm kiss.

 

Geralt made a low sound in his throat, pushing his hands into Emhyr’s hair to alter the angle. Emhyr hooked his thumbs under Geralt’s jerkin and rubbed circles over the thin shirt he wore underneath, making higher thought processes difficult.

 

Emhyr finally pulled himself away. “Come,” he said tersely, leading Geralt further into his rooms. Geralt bit back the urge to make the obvious joke, swallowing laughter with it.

 

Emhyr must have guessed as he gave Geralt a quelling look over his shoulder. Geralt put on his most innocent face and Emhyr snorted. They kissed again, slower this time, having made it only five steps from where they had started.

 

“I will not have you here,” Emhyr said pulling away again, and Geralt shuddered with want.

 

Emhyr was careful with him, which made Geralt feel vulnerable enough that he turned his head into the pillows as Emhyr prepared him.

 

“I would prefer it if you were to face me,” Emhyr said quietly, so Geralt was helpless but to do exactly that, winding handfuls of sheets in his hands as Emhyr fucked him.

 

“I don’t want to wait,” Geralt said after, into the quiet, “I mean, I will. But, I don’t want to.”

 

Emhyr tangled a hand into his hair and pulled him forward for a kiss.

 

“Very well.”

 

-

 

Somehow Geralt had been the one who was volunteered to tell Ciri about him and Emhyr. Emhyr’s innumerable staff meant that their relationship—new as it was—would not stand being kept a secret for long, so Geralt had agreed that it was best to let Ciri know sooner rather than later. How Geralt had become the person to share said news was a mystery to him. He had a horrible feeling he’d agreed somewhere between round one and round two of sex that morning.

 

“Er, hey,” he said as he entered Ciri’s rooms, his plans slightly derailed by the unexpected presence of both Selah and Yen.

 

Judging by Yen’s smirk she already knew what he’d come to tell Ciri, which wasn’t surprising; Yen was good at cultivating relationships wherever she went, and Geralt had no doubt that half the staff were in her confidence already.

 

He chose a seat furthest from her and sat down next to Ciri.

 

“Am I interrupting?” He asked, belatedly.

 

“No, not at all,” Ciri said, leaning briefly against his side in welcome, “we were just discussing some of the differences between elvish religion here and in Selah’s world. Did you know all ancient elvish priests and priestesses were trained warriors?”

 

Geralt looked over at Selah, who looked pleased with herself.

 

“Yeah, I might have noticed that,” he replied, thinking of Selah’s deadly staff.

 

“Selah is going to teach me how to use a bladed-staff,” Yen announced.

 

Geralt hesitated with his drink halfway to his mouth, trying to think of a reaction to that that wasn’t pure horror. Either it would go really well, in which case Yen would be even more dangerous that she already was, or it would go badly and Yen would continue to be dangerous but _annoyed_ and dangerous.

 

“That’s great,” he tried. Ciri snorted.

 

“I haven’t seen you in the library lately, Geralt,” Yen added, “you do look well though. Have you been getting some exercise?”

 

“More than you,” he replied, then made a pained sound as Ciri elbowed him in the side.

 

“Behave, we have a guest,” Ciri ordered, gesturing to Selah who was watching them both with a considered expression.

 

“I have a question, Geralt,” she said in Elder Speech without preamble, “why are there only male Witchers?”

 

Geralt opened his mouth to reply, but Yen jumped in, “The first Witcher was upstaged by a woman, so he formed a secret club and told everyone that only men were allowed.”

 

Ciri snorted, but Selah seemed to take this explanation in all seriousness, nodding as if it made perfect sense.

 

It took over an hour, and a fair amount of wine, before Yen and Selah announced that they were done for the evening.

 

Ciri and Geralt sat comfortably in the sudden silence, the sound of Selah attempting to teach Yen some of her language receding  down the hallway.

 

“More wine?” Ciri asked, gesturing with the bottle in her hand.

 

Geralt tipped his glass towards her, which she filled before turning so she was sat lengthways on the sofa, her stockinged feet in Geralt’s lap.

 

They listened to the sound of the fire crackling in the grate, drinking their wine while Geralt absentmindedly rubbed circles on the base of one of Ciri’s feet. They could almost have been on the path again, except that they were warm, well fed, and Ciri’s stockings smelled clean.

 

“I know already, if it helps,” Ciri remarked.

 

Geralt looking into the depths of his now-empty wine glass, then set it down onto the low table in front of him.

 

“And?” He replied, as close as he could get to asking her if she was okay with it.

 

Ciri was quiet long enough that he had to look up at her, but she was only smiling softly at him.

 

“And I’m happy that two of the people I love most in the world have finally managed to get their heads out of their arses.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“Well, I’m sure you’ve found better use for your...”

 

“Ciri!”

 

Ciri giggled, which made her sound about ten years old. She leant forward and put her hand over his, serious all of a sudden.

 

“You must promise me something,” she said, her voice low.

 

“Of course.”

 

“You must let me be there when you tell Dandelion.”

 

She threw her head back and laughed as Geralt first gaped at her, then pushed her feet off his lap.

 

“You’re not funny, you know,” he said, as Ciri continued to chuckle.

 

In truth he was glad that she wasn’t too shocked. He could return to merely worrying over the fate of their entire world, instead of worrying over his relationship with his daughter.

 

Ciri dumped her feet back into his lap, and after ignoring them for a whole minute, he went back to giving what was most likely a terrible foot massage.

 

“Has Yen come up with any further ideas?” He asked.

 

“A few, but nothing we have been able to scale up appropriately.” She sighed, “there’s something we’re missing, I know it. Some way to hide ourselves and our magic.”

 

Geralt offered what words of comfort he could, but the truth was they were running out of time. He went to bed free of one concern but heavily burdened by another.

 

-

 

Geralt had spent the morning helping Aithlin herd the twins first towards packing and then towards their horses, ready to make their way back to the settlement that was being built along the Runswick. They had expressed a desire to go back to their new home some days ago, and as every trustworthy mage in the palace was otherwise engaged, they’d had to wait for an escort to arrive to take them back.

 

Geralt was surprised at himself for being a little reluctant to see them go, as he was not one to develop attachment quickly, but they often provided a distraction from the grim countdown to the likely arrival of the kura, which, by their best guess, was little more than six months away.

 

Only the evening before he, Ciri, and Emhyr had discussed the possibility of making knowledge of the kura public. Most of the Senate were aware of the origins of the elves and their companions, palace gossip being what it was, but the danger to their own world had so far been successfully suppressed. The change in he and Emhyr’s relationship and the attendant gossip was having the unintended consequence of further directing attention away from the work of Yen and her mages. Geralt paused, briefly considering the dark thought that perhaps that had been Emhyr’s intention all along, before shaking off his doubt. Even if the thought had crossed Emhyr’s mind, he would never deceive Ciri in such a way.

 

There were plans in place for Ciri to be taken somewhere safe, so that the Empress might survive long enough to find a solution once their world had been breached, but if it came to that they were already lost. Selah and Dakat had been clear: once the kura had discovered a world they had never seen anywhere where they had successfully been expelled. Their only hope lay in avoiding detection in the first place.  

 

Geralt flicked a brief _igni_ towards the nearest candle, aware of the danger his magic held in way he had never considered before. Mages were dangerous, sorcerers and vampires and jinn were dangerous, but never the rudimentary magic that Geralt used. One of the other suggestions they had discussed was to somehow limit the magic of their world, but even if it was possible to do so they had no way of knowing that the kura would not eventually seek them out regardless.

 

He continued to brood over the idea during the impressive lunch that servants brought to his room just after midday. He had hoped that Emhyr would be able to join him, but an exceedingly polite servant had presented Geralt a note that stated Emhyr had regrettably been called away to a meeting. Geralt made a mental note to wander into his study later and make him eat a snack at least. Geralt thought he’d maybe started to see something like approval in Mererid’s granite-like expression the third time he’d managed to drag Emhyr away from his desk for long enough to have lunch.

 

Yen burst in to his rooms without the courtesy of a knock not long after the servants had left him to his own devices. He didn’t even get as far as opening his mouth to berate her before she was across the room and sat next to him, eyes bright with excitement.

 

“Did you know that once they had agreed terms, Emhyr had a scribe take down Selah’s story?” She asked in a rush.

 

“Yeah,” Geralt replied, putting down the last of his lunch with some regret. “I was there the first time she told it.”

 

“Well, I was going over some of what she remembered of the shield spell yesterday and when I asked her how they had protected themselves before they came up with the spell, she said the ancients protected them, which is not in the original version of events taken down by the scribes. I spent the morning re-reading the account—it’s not there.”

 

“Well, the first time Dakat was translating and this time you were speaking in Elder Speech, which would account for some discrepancies,” Geralt replied, not sure what Yen was getting at, “but I tell you, if I had a crown for every time someone told me their gods protected...” He stopped, staring at Yen.

 

“The ancients protected them,” he repeated, thinking of the rush of power in Dol Blathanna that had nothing to do with magic, only a tradition older than he could comprehend.

 

Yen grinned at him, triumphant.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Geralt didn’t allow himself to hope. The fact that Selah hadn’t put forward her strange skill as a solution was at least one reason to believe it wasn’t the breakthrough that Yen seemed to think it was.

 

Yen had listened to his doubts for less than a minute before making him put on his boots so they could go look for Selah. They checked the training grounds, her rooms and then the main library before they eventually found her in the smaller of the palace’s two libraries. She was curled in a far corner with a book that looked like it had very little to do with elven law or magics. She looked up with her half-smile when she saw them approaching, but the expression quickly fell away.

 

“Something wrong?” she asked.

 

“No, nothing,” Yen soothed, sitting down on the edge of a sofa while Geralt sat opposite her.

 

“Yen said you might have a way of protecting us from the kura,” Geralt said, without preamble. Yen shot him a furious look, but Geralt had spent enough time with Selah to know that she neither needed or appreciated beating around the bush.

 

Selah looked first at Geralt then at Yen, her frown smoothing into understanding.

 

“The ancients,” she stated, without inflection.

 

Geralt flicked a glance at Yen, the tone of Selah’s voice confirming what he already knew: if there had been the remotest possibility of Selah’s ancients saving them then she would have already spoken of it.

 

“Yes,” Yen confirmed, “you mentioned that they protected you but—forgive me—I did not realise that you meant in the literal sense.”

 

“You thought I meant only praying?” Selah asked.

 

“Yes, it’s not a skill that we’re familiar with,” Yen replied, which was somewhat of an understatement.

 

“It’s no skill, not here,” Selah stated, sitting back as if to dismiss them.

 

“You called the ancients of our world in Dol Blathanna,” Geralt reminded her, “they lit the fires without magic.”

 

“Yes, I had to know if it was possible here, but they are not my people, and they have been silent for so long. For ancients to call fire is _nothing_!” she said in a furious whisper. “A simple trick! On my world, I called our ancients and they came, they came and protected us. And on the next world, and the next, until we were too far from our home. Here, elvish ancestors are powerless, and their people powerless to call them. Cities have crumbled, elves are dead, history is forgotten.”

 

“Could you tell us when Alaesa started using the shield spell?” Yen asked, in the ensuing silence. Geralt looked at her in confusion, but then Selah touched the terrible scars on her face and he understood.

 

“I didn’t know. We were so far from my world, and they didn’t come. I called and called, but nothing. We had more than half a million with us. It took a long time for Alaesa to craft the spell. Maybe a third survived to go to the next world.”

 

“But before that, the ancients were able to hold off the kura?” Geralt asked.

 

Selah nodded decisively, as if the idea of a host of dead elves holding off anything wasn’t the stuff of fantasy.

 

“And it’s not possible here because we are too far from your world?”

 

Selah started to speak then threw up her hands in frustration before trying again in her still hesitant Elder Speech.

 

“It is too far for me and for my dead, yes. And here, there is no _kith ut kirth_ : the elves do not know their lines and they have no land, no homes. They are lost, and the lost cannot call what they do not know, what they cannot understand.”

 

Geralt leant forward, his hands gripping the edge of his seat. This was worse then he had imagined: it wasn’t that Elvish ancients could not protect them—they could, if only their whole civilisation had not been ground into the dust by warmongering humans and their ilk. But when he looked to Yen she was wearing a familiar look of resolve, and he felt a weary kind of gratitude for her willingness to ignore any facts that didn’t suit her.

 

“There must be a way to teach the elves—our elves—your skills,” she stated.

 

“Perhaps,” Selah allowed, with a sharp shrug, “if I had years, if the elves rebuilt their cities. If they could visit their dead. If, if, if.”

 

Geralt wanted away from this conversation; from this room and this creeping terror that he couldn’t kill or solve; from the shadow of the elves’ destruction. After a moment he reached out and put a hand over Selah’s where it lay in her lap. She looked up at him, startled for a moment before giving him a small smile.

 

He got up, and looked to Yen expectantly. She also placed her hand over Selah’s, who looked down to their joined hands with an unreadable expression. Yen then rose and followed him out of the library, more respectful of the quiet atmosphere leaving than they were going in.

 

“Even if you could fuck Emhyr into agreeing to hand the elves back their cities, there would never be enough time to train them,” Yen commented, once they were alone.

 

Geralt almost missed a step, although he wasn't sure why he was surprised. If anyone was capable of cutting to the core of an issue, it was Yen. And she was right: they had no time.

 

-

 

By the early evening Geralt had resorted to sitting on the edge of Emhyr’s desk and giving him his most intimidating stare until Emhyr had sighed and declared himself finished for the day. His dismissed attendants fairly fled the room, no doubt thinking that they were barely escaping some frantic sex, but Geralt merely leaned in for a chaste kiss once they were alone.

 

“I heard the senate session this morning was a little more light-hearted than it had been in some time,” Geralt said. What he’d actually heard was that more than one Senator had managed to get a reference to Emhyr’s virility into an otherwise innocuous session on taxes.

 

“Yes, apparently taking up with a renowned monster killer is a sign of my old age senility and the senate as a whole are relieved rather than murderous.”

 

Geralt grinned at him, but Emhyr spoke again before he could make even a single joke.

 

“That does not mean there is no danger. I imagine there will be until we can suggest a viable solution to the problem I will soon be presenting to them. Time grows short.”

 

“Yeah, about that—would you like the bad news or the _really_ bad news?”

 

“What is it?” Emhyr asked, turning from where he had been putting away his heavy chain of office, the weight of his full attention almost a physical sensation.

 

“We thought we had something, Yen and I, but…” Geralt swallowed, apparently not as sanguine about their near-save as he had thought he was.

 

“It was something to do with the rite that Selah performed, was it not?”

 

Geralt looked up at him sharply.

 

“You were so obviously dismissive of it and her power that you could have only been protecting something.” When Geralt didn’t go on, searching for the words to convey the scope of their failure, Emhyr came over to him and took his hands in his own.

 

“Perhaps you can tell me about it tomorrow,” he said, to Geralt’s relief. It was probably selfish, but he wanted Emhyr to himself tonight, not to lose him to a night of fruitless plotting.

 

They had eaten dinner and were an hour into a game of gwent when a perfunctory knock indicated they had visitors. Geralt expected Ciri, as no-one else could have entered without a guard announcing them, but was surprised to see not only her but also Yen, Selah and Dakat.

 

Geralt gathered their cards and put them to one side, so that once Ciri had seated herself he and Emhyr could turn to face them.

 

Geralt kept his eyes downcast as he took more time than was necessary to make sure the cards were in order, berating himself for not talking the opportunity to talk through Selah’s skills earlier. No doubt Emhyr knew something of them already or he wouldn’t have been so quick to let Geralt put off giving a full report until tomorrow, but if Geralt had known that Ciri would be coming to plead for whatever plan they had scrabbled together in the last few hours, then he would have at least discussed them with Emhyr beforehand.

 

“Good evening, daughter,” Emhyr said, formally, “is something amiss?” He asked, echoing Selah’s earlier question in the library.

 

“We have a proposal, father, one that I hope you give due consideration,” Ciri replied, Yen sat to one side of her, and Selah and Dakat on her other.

 

“Please,” he turned his hand in an encouraging gesture, and Ciri turned to the elves.

 

“Before the shield spell, Selah used her skills, skills well known in her world, to protect her people from the kura.” Dakat began. “Skills not born of magic, but of ritual and devotion: of the worship and communication with her ancestors. But it cannot be done again. Not here, not now.”

 

“Why?” Emhyr asked, simply.

 

Selah answered him, Dakat translating as she reverted to her own language, “My link to the ancients of my world is through tens of thousands of years of history. I am from an unbroken line of priestesses. I know the name of my mother’s great, great grandmother. I have been to her house and walked the streets of _her_ great grandmother’s home. Here elvish history lies in ruins, a whole people displaced, with no sense of their own beginnings. Perhaps it would have been possible if they had not been so thoroughly diminished. You destroyed them and their way of life, and with it their ability to save you.” Selah looked down to where she had clenched her hands in lap, she unwound them and flexed her fingers before speaking again. “However, perhaps there is a way.”

 

Emhyr remained perfectly still, and Geralt forced himself to release the breath he hadn’t realised that he was holding.

 

“If elvish hands clear the rubble from their temples,” Selah said, her voice rising a little as she spoke, “if elves are once again sovereign in their own lands, if their dead are named and their lines remembered, perhaps it will be enough. Perhaps they will, with help, be able to call on their ancestors to protect them. To protect us.”

 

Geralt hoped his despair didn’t show on his face. It was a futile request, not because it wasn’t possible, Emhyr had pretty much guaranteed himself the power to give and take lands and titles as he so wished, but because it involved such a leap of faith. Who was to say that this wasn’t a ploy on the elves part for some desperate last grab at power? That they wouldn’t use their new skills to subjugate those who had done so to them? Geralt could see all this and more pass through Emhyr’s mind, and he knew it was not something he could agree to. Ciri must have come to the same conclusion as she had gone still in a way she did when she was anticipating having to argue with her father. He didn’t think it was going to make much difference, but he admired her willingness to try.

 

Emhyr considered Selah for a long moment, but it was Geralt he turned to.

 

The first time he had met Selah she had seen something between he and Emhyr that he himself had been blind to. A respect that Emhyr accorded him, a trust that he had in so few others. Geralt was not sure what he had done to deserve it, but he had woken every day since the revelation wanted to be deserving of it. He thought now that perhaps he could see an to end this war, this horror, without even having to unsheathe his sword.

 

Balance, Selah had said, you bring balance.

 

Still not quite believing that he was being granted a say, he gave Emhyr a single nod.

 

Emhyr stood, and Geralt reflexively stood with him.

 

“We will restore the great cities of Iolas, Alre, Kelam and Myrin to elvish hands,” he began. “We will give adequate coin and resources to elves so that they may clear the ruins of the Goren caves and the surrounding necropolis. We will give training to those who need it so their cities will be protected, and we will offer them our own protection until they are ready to guard themselves. In exchange we ask that your skills be shared with the elvish priests and priestesses of this world so that they can attempt to call the ancients to hide us from the kura. We swear this on House Emeris and House Raven, on the Elder Blood that runs through my veins and my daughter’s, and on all the titles we possess. We swear on the name of Geralt of Rivia, Master Witcher, Guardian of the Crown Princesses. Are these terms acceptable to you?”

 

Selah got to her feet, Dakat beside her.

 

“Yes,” she said, “we accept.”

 

-

 

**_Epilogue: two years later..._ **

  


The southernmost ley lines were a two-week ride from the Capital, and a six-week ride from Toussaint. Selah had ridden out from Arle to Corvo Bianco and spent a week eating Marlene’s food and debating Elvish philosophy with Emhyr. Geralt and Selah had then set out together, as they had last year and presumably would do again the year after.  

 

Just outside of Toussaint they rode down past the outskirts of a newly-built Elven necropolis. It had been a mass grave, the echoes of a battle that had raged in the foothills of the Amell Mountains some two hundred years ago. He could just see the tops of impossibly delicate white spires as they were caught by the mid-morning sun and, as they rode towards Belhaven, snatches of song tumbled down to the them on the wind. It was only one of many such changes that Emhyr’s decree had wrought. There were simply not enough elves left to people all the great cities of old, but perhaps that would change.

 

Southern Nilfgaard was sparsely populated despite the beauty of the mountains and lakes that encircled this part of the realm. It was spring, and the streams ran fresh and cold with melted snow into the foothills, attracting enough life to keep them well fed despite the relative lack of civilization.  

 

The limits of their world lay a little further into the mountains but they traveled leisurely, in no particular hurry to reach their destination. For his part, Geralt had not yet been able to sense the gradual fading of magic that had been predicted, but he had noticed a decline in monsters, and Yen moaned loudly about her curtailed powers whenever he was in her vicinity. Selah had assured him that it would be generations before magic faded from their world altogether, although they’d been out of hearing range of Yen at the time, who seemed to be enjoying herself too much to worry about the facts.

 

“So, you and Yen, eh?” He commented as they made the final part of their ascent into the mountains. He hadn’t been sure how he felt about it at first, but he and Yen could now speak without having tiptoe around potential pitfalls or sore subjects and he was glad for Selah. Emhyr and Yen, however, was a work in progress.

 

Selah smiled but gave no reply. Sometimes she was merely looking for the right words in Common, so Geralt let her be.

 

“She has a strange obsession with unicorns,” Selah finally said, “did you know this?”

 

Geralt snorted with laughter that somehow turned into a coughing fit. Selah looked on, bemused.

 

“Er, yeah. I had noticed that.”

 

They were silent again then, concentrating on guiding their mountain ponies up the narrow ledge that had been only recently cut out of the rock. Sigils carved into the path hid it from view from anyone who had not already been told its whereabouts, but as there were only a handful of elves who could manipulate the forces that they journeyed towards, there was no great need for wards or protections.

 

“Can you sense anything?” Selah asked, once they had crested the ridge of the path.

 

Geralt concentrated for a moment. “No,” he concluded, “you?”

 

She bowed her head, her looped braids drooping with the movement.

 

“I feel them, the ancients, but nothing else.”

 

“Can you get any kind of read on them?”

 

“They are…” she shook her head and said a word in her own language, “content? Your language is stupid.”

 

Geralt was well used to her complaints on the limitations of Common.

 

“No magic, no heroes, no stories to tell,” Geralt lamented, thinking of one of Dandelion’s more famous songs about the almost-calamity that had befallen their world.  

 

“A new people will come: they will tell their own stories.”

 

There wasn’t much that could be said to that, so Geralt picked his way closer to the small altar that had been set up between two great stones. Most of the dried flowers had been blown away, but a simple stone cup remained with thin scrim of wine at the bottom. Geralt set to tidying up and replacing the offerings, while Selah did something that she claimed was meditating but looked suspiciously like napping to Geralt’s eyes. She had said that the altar was not necessary, but the Imperial Mages had been insistent and Geralt didn’t see the harm. Even immortal elvish ghosts must appreciate a good Toussaint vintage red.

 

“Do you think it’ll be enough?” He asked, looking at the approximate place where Selah assured him thousands of dead elves guarded them, but when he turned to her Selah was looking out over the rolling green of her adopted home.

 

“Yes,” she replied, “it is enough.”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wo-ho! Done! Do not start two 20+K fics then move countries a couple of times. This is what I have learnt.
> 
> If anyone is interested I'm taking part in [Fandom Trumps Hate](https://fth2019offerings.dreamwidth.org/86943.html) this year (in any fandom you like) - all monies going to good causes. 
> 
> I'm also writing a book, ETA the end of the year ^^
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented, left kudos or simply read the story - I am grateful for each and every one of you.


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